Projects like these will be always one step behind the thing they are trying to replicate (MacOS in this case). It is better to spend one's creative energy innovating and coming up with better solutions rather than re-implementing what Apple is doing.
I disagree. NeXT / macOS has been a pretty stable target for a very, very long time. If you’re going to clean room implement anything, a stable thing is a great target.
macOS has, however, been making superficial changes that people don’t care about. A free macOS desktop alternative would build on a stable set of core technologies, and let people do the crazy things that they want, and not do the crazy things that they don’t want.
The „good thing“ is, that Apple seems to be heading in wrong directions.
So yes, it will be behind. Until suddenly it stops following and have it‘s own direction.
It is way overdue for a change in the ecosystem again.
There should be more choices for the average user.
I urge everyone who has some demanded skills to get involved in projects like this. It is time.
Given that there’s 20 years of “behind,” and many of those machines are no longer getting updates, what’s the harm? The dev learns something and the community gains knowledge from the project.
I was once critical of ReactOS for similar reasons, but I’ve realized just how beneficial that project has been to OSS as a whole. Even if they fail they will uncover a lot of interesting stuff if the project continues long-term.
There is a ton of cross-pollination between the ReactOS and Wine projects. Sure, Wine is more useful but they wouldn’t exist as they do today without each other.
> Projects like these will be always one step behind the thing they are trying to replicate (MacOS in this case).
No, they won't. MacOS and Windows are both going backwards in innovations (according to many HN commenters at least). At some point this project (and ReactOS) will get better than the originals.
Eh, I don't see much difference between older MacOS versions such as Mountain Lion compared to Big Sur.
Similarly, I don't see much difference between Ubuntu desktop distros in terms of differences across versions , say from 16 to 20.
Therefore... I don't see a being "one step behind" as any kind of issue. I've never run into an issue with past versions (such as those menntioned above) of OSes not running what I need them to run.
Personally, I'd like to see a Linux version which is very close to Apple so I can use it (such as OP's), instead of expensive Apple computers.
It could be argued that just by being community-driven and open source, projects like these are in fact better. It all depends what "better" means to you. (E.g. not phoning home to Apple every time you open a program...)
