Comment on Why is Windows still bloated
mrbigmouth502@piefed.zip 19 hours ago
why does it need to accommodate compatibility for archaic devices/software?
Because that’s one of Windows’ selling points. It has unusually good backwards compatibility for a mainstream operating system. Compare that to iOS, Android, MacOS, or Linux, where the infrastructure needed to run older binaries often doesn’t exist in the first place.
Linux is a weird case, because thanks to Wine, it actually runs a lot of old games better than Windows, but this doesn’t do anything to help compatibility with older Linux binaries.
communism@lemmy.ml 18 hours ago
Worth considering that there’s less of a need for backwards-compatibility with Linux binaries because most Linux software is open-source, so they can be recompiled or updated for modern Linux by the end user if the maintainer is gone. A lot of legacy Windows software is still in use and the source is unavailable, so Windows has to support it for the businesses that use the legacy software. In other words, it’s a cultural difference too. Linux seems pretty good at supporting things users actually use, like old hardware.