elementary OS may not be as much as popular as it used to be.
That being said, elementary OS 8 release is still on the horizon with some useful changes based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
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However, amidst disagreement between co-founders during the pandemic in 2022, co-founder Cassidy quit the elementary OS team.
Right after that, the development pace took a big hit, and we saw elementary OS 7 being released almost a year after Ubuntu 22.04 LTS came up.
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A good indicator about its development activity is its upcoming major release, elementary OS 8, based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
I took a sneak peek at it using the daily build, and elementary OS 8 is almost ready to have an RC release.
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You can expect things like:
- The settings app handles system updates (instead of AppCenter)
- AppCenter is now Flatpak only
- New toggle menu icon giving you easy access to the screen reader, onscreen keyboard, font size, and other system settings
- WireGuard VPN support
Absolutely.
A lot of it is just the organization and leadership within the projects themselves. The GNUstep guys struggled for a long time. Just agreeing to implement the Mac APIs instead of just the NeXTstep ones is a thing.
Regardless of how attractive projects are, they can be run well or badly. Without trying to disparage anybody, look at the progress of WINE vs ReactOS for example. And if you think it is just because kernels are hard, look at Linux or Haiku or SerenityOS vs ReactOS instead.
But the popularity of Windows made the Win32 APIs more commercially viable as well and so you get companies like CodeWeavers and Valve that really accelerate the WINE effort. That wind at your back really helps.