So, if you’ve never heard of ReactOS, it’s an alternative to Windows, except it’s open source, and reverse engineered.
The end result is, if it works on Windows, it works on ReactOS natively.
Now, as you might imagine, there are some issues with this. The most glaring one being that they’re currently in the year 2003. That’s the level they’re at with software. It’s not even emulation. It’s running the software natively, and it’s written from scratch.
But my takeaway is that Linux running windows apps natively would improve people’s hesitation to running linux.
Now since ReactOS is FOSS, any improvements made upon it could then be forked over to Linux. And if someone made a ReactOS fork, that isn’t linux, that’s good too (as long as it stays open source). Any advancements made by this new theoretical fork of ReactOS could ALSO be forked into linux.
Right now, development is slow, because it’s a community driven effort without much of a community. If it had a large and engaged community, all legally reverse engeneering the ways of windows? That would allow basically EVERY OS to have FOSS unofficial native windows support.
So I guess my question is, for an OS that’s been in development since 1998, why doesn’t the linux community embrace ReactOS?
I can agree with this. I’ve always said that the concept of Linux needs to be a centralized experience for most, and then diverging distros for those who want to seek them for others. Like when you install Linux for the first time, it’s just called “Linux”. That’s the name of the distro. And it is a collection of all the other OS’s most popular features. It is the default linux experience. If YOU want to change something, you can, but most won’t. Windows 95 and later were actually pretty customizable, but how many people actually customized their window colors? I knew a few people who did. Most didn’t.
And that’s the thing about this kind of mass appeal that linux would experience. Terminal would still work, just as it does today, but it wouldn’t be the default behavior for most. Terminal is the second biggest reason people don’t use linux.
So for there to be a singular starting experience, it needs to basically be “This is linux. You’ve never used it, but you already know how. All your programs from mac and windows work here. Plus it’s free, and more secure without ads or tracking.”
That alone would be the driving force. Once they’re into the ecosystem, they can play with terminal if they want. They can customize if they want. But I have a feeling that most would stay with whatever the default experience was for their entire time using the system.
And the part where “all your apps work” is part of what I’m talking about with everybody catching ReactOS to modern. It’s not modern right now, but that’s due to lack of development. I’m saying with a huge development increase, it could be a small part of what makes your vision of a popular linux a reality. One of many moving parts basically.