Comment by hitpointdrew | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hitpointdrew | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> I've never figured out why the inordinate delay given that millions are unhappy with Windows and Microsoft generally. You'd reckon open source developers would be falling over themselves to join such a project but it seems not.

I think there is a strong misconception that there is this massive pool of open-source devs twiddling there thumbs just itching to jump in on some project were they can pour time and effort for nothing more than the "good of the community". I don't have any sources for this, but it my strong suspicion that the vast majority of "open source" contributions are actually done by contributors that are compensated either by a company that doesn't mind paying their employees to work on open source projects, or by a foundation behind the open source project. Take Go-lang for example, originally created by Google, then opened up. I am sure there are Google employees that still contribute (on Googles dime) to the project. Why would Google do this? Why not keep the Go just for themselves? Simple, if they open it up and can get other people/companies to use it, then they can make future hires where they don't have to train everyone on a proprietary language.

ReactOS doesn't have a large foundation behind it, and it doesn't make sense for companies to allow their employees to develop and contribute to it on their dime.

Development is skilled labor, especially for an OS. Dev's need to eat, need a home, etc. I don't know a single dev that is itching to give away their skills for 0 compensation. The only time devs really do that is when it is a personal passion project.

> I think there is a strong misconception that there is this massive pool of open-source devs twiddling there thumbs just itching to jump in on some project were they can pour time and effort for nothing more than the "good of the community". I don't have any sources for this, but it my strong suspicion that the vast majority of "open source" contributions are actually done by contributors that are compensated either by a company that doesn't mind paying their employees to work on open source projects, or by a foundation behind the open source project.

I actually think this is a wider societal issue. People love calling for work to be done in some abstract sense ('someone should really...', 'they should make it so that..'), but who is this 'they'? Or this 'someone'? You? Because you're either volunteering yourself, or you're 'volunteering' someone else for the job, there's no third option.

There's this general sense that everything will be (or is) documented; every tool made, every itch scratched. But unless the incentives (money, fame, prestige, personal fulfilment, love, curiosity, self-expression, etc.) are there for someone to do it, it won't get done. Most things will never be done.

So if someone says "I don't understand why X hasn't been done", I feel like an appropriate response is to ask why they haven't done it. And generally, whatever reasons they give, those reasons will be a good explanation why anyone else hasn't done it either.

"I feel like an appropriate response is to ask why they haven't done it."

The average user can't program let alone build an operating system. The same way the average driver cannot build a car. Or smartphone users cannot build a smartphone.

Users have requirements of their tech and the more experienced they become the more they reqire of their tech. The trouble is that with the monopolies that run Big Tech their monopolistic practices give them little incentive to provide features that benefit users, instead the new features benefit them.

I could give you numerous examples of software that requires new features but no attempt has been made in decades to add them. Take Windows, whatever happened to the WinFS file system? It's sorely needed but MS and Big Tech generally want users to use Cloud storage and that benefits them, WinFS would help sidestep that. Windows and Windows Explorer need major extensions to the file attributes sysyem, Explorer needs major ergonomic enhancements to make file manipulation easier, and that's just for starters.

Without real competition none of this will occur, not even Linux and Apple can fix this because of their differences, they too are moribund in their own ecosystems for the sane reason.

Meanwhile, users like me have unfulfilled needs that are quite technically within the means of existing computers and well within the capabilities of tech companies to provide but these needs still remain unfulfilled after decades.

That we are nearly 80 years into the computer revolution and users still cannot perform simple basic tasks on a PC that have been straightforward commonplace operations in a paper-based filing system for hundreds of years just isn't good enough.

The fact is it's impractical for users of modern tech to start from scratch just because Big Tech doesn't fix bugs or add much-needed features. Unfortunately, attitudes like yours do not help.

Marx once said workers need command of production, these days I'd alter that to users need command of production so they can get the necessaries to do what they need to do.

>Marx once said...

Why anyone, reads, or cares at all about Marx, is beyond me. The guy was the biggest fucking loser bum to ever exist. He was constantly hitting up family for money, never had a real fucking job, was an absolute slob of a human being, treated is children like dog shit, and in general was too impressed by his own "intelligence".

>ReactOS doesn't have a large foundation behind it, and it doesn't make sense for companies to allow their employees to develop and contribute to it on their dime.

It's also a solution to a problem that largely doesn't exist. The people working on it do so for fun, not because they need Windows but not made by Microsoft. The parent comments says "having no alternative O/S to Windows is a real pain" but it's not a real pain to any significant amount of people.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com