Rework the paragraph about alternative operating systems like ReactOS

[alexbobp]

There was a paragraph that says that there are many open source alternatives to Linux on the desktop. This is misleading to the point of being effectively wrong, especially given the mention of ReactOS. ReactOS is an early alpha research toy that works on some hardware and runs some windows programs. Posing it as a viable alternative to Linux for people selecting an operating system today, does not make sense. To my knowledge, all of the alternatives to Linux that are viable options for end-users today, are some form of unix-like anyways, and share most of the same traits that this article distinguishes Linux for, as well as most of the same userland software for graphical environments.

So to put it in simple practical terms, if all somebody cares about is running an open source operating system, then the clear choice is Linux. Maybe some flavor of BSD. But not ReactOS, nor TempleOS, nor a myriad of other open source operating systems that do technically exist, but won't run any of the software that anybody needs or wants for their work or play. Window users find learning to use kubuntu is a lot easier than learning how to debug whether it's even possible to get their hardware drivers properly installed in ReactOS.

Reframing it as a question about community investment in projects along the lines of ReactOS, seems more logical to me. It preserves the core concept without making wildly disingenuous implications about the options that real users have today in selecting an operating system.

[alexbobp]

quick followup: no disrespect is meant to the wonderful ReactOS project, which, even if it never produces a practically usable desktop OS, is integral to the open source community's understanding of windows internals, and cooperates with the wine project and thus helps even us linux users run more windows software. And hopefully some day ReactOS does culminate in a usable desktop OS.