Looking for OS Developers – Help Build a Free Windows 11–Compatible Operating System from Scratch!

[basicprogrammer30]

**Looking for OS Developers – Help Build a Free Windows 11–Compatible Operating System from Scratch!

Hi everyone!

I'm starting an ambitious open-source project to build a fully Windows 11–compatible operating system from scratch — not based on Linux or Wine — and I'm looking for passionate developers to join the team!

Project Goal:

Create a free, open-source OS that can:

Run modern Win32/Win64 applications

• Support DirectX 12-level graphics

• Boot on modern hardware (UEFI, TPM, Secure Boot)

• Provide a beautiful, customizable desktop environment

• Be 100% legal, clean-room developed

Tech Overview:

• Kernel: Custom NT-like design

• Language: C/C++, Assembly, maybe Rust

• Architecture: x86\_64 (ARM64 later)

• No dependencies on Linux, Wine, or ReactOS (though we may take inspiration)

Who I'm Looking For:

• OS kernel developers

• Hardware abstraction & driver developers

• GUI/system shell designers

• Bootloader/UEFI hackers

• Devs familiar with Win32 API, GDI, or Windows internals

• Anyone who wants to help build something big!

Why Join?

• Be part of something bold and technically exciting

• Learn low-level systems programming

• Collaborate with like-minded devs

• Build something that could eventually rival ReactOS or even challenge Microsoft’s monopoly

Get Involved:

Whether you're a pro, a student, or just curious about OS dev — you're welcome!

• GitHub Website: https://github.com/SlideOS/SlideOS

Contact Join Chat: [email protected]

Let’s bring back the classic feel of computing — but modern, fast, and free.
Interested? Comment below or DM me! Let's build the future OS together.

Win32 Documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/
Recommended Reverse Engineering Tools: Binary Ninja https://binary.ninja/free/

[Octocontrabass]

Have you read this yet?

[iansjack]

Can I ask what experience you have of project-managing a program of this complexity?

[basicprogrammer30]

I Will Introduce My OS If Success To Make Win11 Based OS On Stack Overflow

[iansjack]

That doesn’t really answer my question. It will require excellent project-management skills to co-ordinate such an undertaking.

One other point. You recommend some reverse-engineering software. The very, very last thing that you want to do is to reverse-engineer any of Microsoft’s proprietary software. They have very good lawyers. In fact you want to make sure that no-one contributing to your project has ever worked for Microsoft or has any knowledge of the Windows code base. You must produce any code from scratch, working only from the API specifications rather than any knowledge of the code that underlies those specifications. You most definitely do not want

Devs with familiar with Windows internals

Windows internals should be no concern of yours - you are re-implementing the API from scratch with your own original code and algorithms.

Unless you have very deep pockets; rest assured that Microsoft’s pockets are probably deeper.

[eekee]

It's a painful lesson to learn, but if you think this can be done, you are in no way qualified to do it. I wasted so much time thinking I could do amazing things when the truth was I couldn't get to grips with complexity at all. I hope you don't have the health problems I do, but I'm sure you need to learn how complexity slows and limits development, and how to manage it.

Ultimately, For both technical and legal reasons, ReactOS and the various Wine forks are the best Windows clones we can have, and it would be useless to restart instead of contributing to them. Probably, the best you can do for your goal is to ensure you remain unfamiliar with Windows internals and invest your time into ReactOS. Note though that the primary investor into ReactOS recently has been Russia -- a nation -- and yet they still haven't advanced ReactOS very much. They added BtrFS support and not a whole lot more. It's still only at the level of Windows XP/Server 2003, with limited support for newer things. Actually, the ReactOS wiki wants a bit of cleanup on that very point; some pages and paragraphs differ from others on quite what ReactOS supports.

[dreimer]

And once more... Russia NEVER was a investor for us. I should know as vice president of the only legal representation we have. And this no profit assiciation is registered in Germany btw (https://ev.reactos.org/index_en.htm). We have ZERO investors that are not private donations. I wonder when finally ppl will stop telling these lies...

Anyways I did not register because of that. I registered to ask you why you think you can get any more developers that are in the slightest bit experienced enough to create a NT arch based OS from scatch than we have? We are looking eagerly for devs everywhere for years, have CLT and FOSDEM booths to represent the project and still found about 6 devs in the recent three years... This is it! Such low level NT devs don't grow on trees, ya know? But sure, lets split the scarce resources even more by creating a fork of a forked fork again. Instead of working together, we reinvent the wheel the 39289th time just because the color was ugly. This is why I follow ReactOS and am no big fan of most other FOSS projects which fork again and again because of some absolutely irrelevant detail and then wonder why nothing progresses if everyone works against each other and no one is able to work on a compromise TOGETHER?!

So and now regarding your feature list. I see quite a few things we are already working on. (Or to be precise a small team of our newest project members decided to work on and by doing so finally got rid of a few obstacles preventing the step to NT6+). If you wanna be part of something that has at least a chance above 0 to realize your goals, I recommend you show up on our Mattermost or the (unofficial Discord). If you have any skills to aim to such high goals, we might be in dire need of your skills.

Greetings
Daniel Reimer
Vice President of ReactOS Deutschland e.V.

[Tomrs123]

This post also seems like... it was made by AI. First, em dashes EVERYWHERE (that — character), emojis everywhere (no one on this forum uses emojis, only the smilies). Another thing is, look at the first line:

**Looking for OS Developers – Help Build a Free Windows 11–Compatible Operating System from Scratch!

As you can see, there's a little "**" at the start. AIs usually output in Markdown, but clearly when this person copy and pasted from ChatGPT or something, they were transforming the Markdown to the tags used in this forum, and they forgot to delete that **. Just a little observation.

Finally, look at the only reply from basicprogrammer after the first post:

I Will Introduce My OS If Success To Make Win11 Based OS On Stack Overflow

That is FULL of grammar mistakes, way different from the first post. Clearly "basicprogrammer30" didn't go for a trip to ChatGPT on that one. (by the way, if this person really is a "basic programmer", then why are they doing THIS?)

That's are of the places I could see that hints to AI, but what do I know? There may be more.

I also put the post content through a AI checker, and well.. it gave this result:

Capture.PNG (6.89 KiB) Viewed 1124 times

Pretty self-explantory. This post is AI.

[nullplan]

That's are of the places I could see that hints to AI, but what do I know? There may be more.

Personally I don't care, really. I just saw the headline, and that was a bigger red flag to me than the Chinese one. This is the prototypical example of what not to do on this forum.

[Tomrs123]

Oh also, one more thing I just noticed, the Github Link on the first post.. doesn't even exist. Maybe the AI put it in there, and the creator just... forgot to create it.

[Octocontrabass]

Maybe the AI put it in there, and the creator just... forgot to create it.

It used to exist. They either made it private or deleted it.

[Tomrs123]

It used to exist. They either made it private or deleted it.

Oh.

[eekee]

And once more... Russia NEVER was a investor for us. I should know as vice president of the only legal representation we have. And this no profit assiciation is registered in Germany btw (https://ev.reactos.org/index_en.htm). We have ZERO investors that are not private donations. I wonder when finally ppl will stop telling these lies...

I'm sorry, I won't repeat that one again.

Anyways I did not register because of that. I registered to ask you why you think you can get any more developers that are in the slightest bit experienced enough to create a NT arch based OS from scatch than we have? We are looking eagerly for devs everywhere for years, have CLT and FOSDEM booths to represent the project and still found about 6 devs in the recent three years... This is it! Such low level NT devs don't grow on trees, ya know? But sure, lets split the scarce resources even more by creating a fork of a forked fork again. Instead of working together, we reinvent the wheel the 39289th time just because the color was ugly. This is why I follow ReactOS and am no big fan of most other FOSS projects which fork again and again because of some absolutely irrelevant detail and then wonder why nothing progresses if everyone works against each other and no one is able to work on a compromise TOGETHER?!

I wish I was! I'm just starting to study the Win32 API.

I'm frustrated by all the forks and re-trodden ground too. Some I can understand, but when the reasons involve too much of enthusiasm and too little understanding, it's both annoying seeing the misdirected effort and sadenning because I remember when I was like that and how frustrating it was in the end. I've seen a lot in my 25 years as an open source user. Even the makers of Wayland have been accused of rushing ahead when they didn't understand what was wrong with X11, though I hasten to add I only heard that accusation once, a long time ago. I can't verify it myself, I moved on to Plan 9 before Wayland got started.