Development
ReactOS is primarily written in C, with some elements, such as ReactOS Explorer and sound stack, written in C++. The project relies on MinGW for compilation, and contributes to its development through the submission of patches to its components.
The developers aim to make the kernel more compatible with Windows NT version 5.2 (Windows Server 2003), the usermode APIs with Windows NT 6.1 (Windows 7), and to add support for more applications and hardware. DirectX support is undertaken through ReactX, an in-house implementation. 2D hardware-accelerated rendering is done natively, while other drawing functionality is redirected to OpenGL as a stopgap solution.
Development progress is influenced by the size of the development team and the level of experience amongst them. As an estimate of the effort required to implement the Windows API, there are 1000 or so developers who worked on Windows 7 alone, organized into 25 teams, with each team averaging 40 developers. As of 2 September 2011 (2011 -09-02), in the ReactOS entry in Ohloh, the page followed through the "Very large, active development team" link lists 33 developers who have contributed over a 12-month period and a cumulative total of 104 present and former users who have contributed code to the project via Subversion since its inception. In his presentation at Hackmeeting 2009 in Milan, ReactOS developer Michele C. noted that most of the developers learn about Windows architecture while working on ReactOS and have no prior knowledge.
Read more about this topic: ReactOS
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