ReactOS Gains Support for Job Objects — a Step Toward Running Modern Windows Applications
Translated by a model; the original is in Russian.
The ReactOS project, which aims for compatibility with Windows drivers and applications, has reached an important milestone. This past Saturday, a pull request adding initial support for so-called Job Objects — Windows kernel primitives — was merged into the system's codebase.
What Job Objects Are
Job Objects allow a group of processes to be managed as a single unit. With them, the operating system sets resource limits, performs collective termination of processes, imposes security restrictions, and handles other similar tasks. The mechanism is described in detail in Microsoft's documentation.
The significance of this functionality goes far beyond a mere technical implementation detail. Job Objects are precisely what modern application isolation (sandboxing) relies on — first and foremost in web browsers — as well as a number of system services and daemons. Without support for this mechanism, running current Windows software on ReactOS remained all but impossible.
A Long Road
Work on Job Objects in ReactOS went on, without exaggeration, for years: the initial code appeared almost a decade ago. The merged implementation targets the functionality of Windows versions up to Windows 8. Some features are not yet implemented, but basic support is already working — the details are laid out in the pull request itself. The developers announced the achievement on the social network X, calling it an important step toward running modern applications such as browsers.
This is not the project's only recent progress. Earlier, ReactOS implemented its first Windows NT6-level system call, moving toward compatibility with applications for Windows Vista. And this summer the system passed another symbolic marker — it learned to run the game Half-Life 2.
Step by step, ReactOS is approaching its long-standing goal: to become a full-fledged free alternative to Windows, capable of running familiar software without Windows itself.
Source: Phoronix
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