this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025
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Not going to admonish the devs for doing what they like in their own time. There are a lot of hobby OS out there and they are fun to tinker around with for a few minutes.
And this is likely my own personal nitpick. But honestly rather than starting something new I would really like to see someone adopt and modernize something like Plan 9 or Inferno. A few years ago there was a group trying to do a more modern user-centered version of plan 9. Complete with a lot of the more modern apps that users would want to use on such a system. I think once they saw the actual scope that the project would require, it kind of silently sputtered out to the best of my knowledge. Those operating systems were so ahead of their time. Linux is only just now catching up in some ways.
LOL though I'm sure I will still download the image and pop it open in vert manager for a few minutes later today
I feel the same way about Linux distros.
There's something like 500+ actively updated distros. 39% (according to some random article from 2020) are used by less than 0.1% of users.
Y'all... Spend that time and energy other open source projects that need the help!
For many it's just a hobby. But I really think with the way certain things are falling into place. Now would definitely be a good time for a few projects at least to get focused. With RISC V on the horizon, as well as a few basic open source GPU implementations. This would be a perfect time for a BSD or something similar to dive in heavy and establish themselves as a primary player for that sort of hardware.
But a lot of these obvious coders Etc and their projects also help shape future paradigms and push projects forward in their own way. So it's still exciting to see what comes of them. It's why all these years later I still check in from time to time on React OS.
Fair point. I also code useless silly things as a hobby, so I guess maybe I'm no one to talk. But I also don't have the skills to peak around the Linux Mint errors list and just give one or two a go, which, selfishly, benefits me as a Mint user.
You never know when you will find another college student from Finland who happens to be in just the right place at just the right time for their hobby project to blow up.
Right now though it's something to Marvel at. That something like Linux or Linux Mint even exists and is as usable as it is.