Sad story. Best OS I ever run was around 2002 NetBSD on a desktop. It is quite bad that Linux is the only viable player for an operating system on desktops/laptops.
(With viable I mean has drivers for all of my my hardware and runs the software I need for personal and professional life.)
I would be happy if something usable comes out of it. OTOH, the classical problem is and has always been driver support. I am not sure I like the plan of running a complete Linux as a subsystem for driver support, and I have doubts Redox will have native drivers for all hardware within the next decade.
According to your logic we should all use Google Chrome. ;-)
Comparing Linux with the BSDs is really apples and oranges. The BSDs have a very nicely integrated base system, everything just works(TM) and everything works together. When you only ever used Linux or Apple with homebrew, you never experienced a system where all basic tools really fit and work together.
Linux is a pragmatic choice, but it is an Unix-clone made by PC people. The BSDs are a Unix operating system for PCs made by Unix people. We loose something very important if the BSDs get totally out of style/forgotten.
You make a very good point about Chrome. If Google was not the lord of development I might actually have nodded along with that as well.
My BSD experience comes from Truenas core which did not play nice with docker and needed a ton of custom work with jails. They have since moved to Linux with scale and suddenly everything integrates a lot more nicely.
At this there are multiple Linux versions as well maintained by different companies. But the altruistic dictator still plays a key role.
Well, I funnily enough also agree with you, having just one widely used browser engine for all platforms sounds great in theory... (Until someone decides to not let you block advertisement anymore...;-))
Docker is one of the reasons I use Linux and for all practical purposes nearly all open source software is developed for Linux and later ported to the BSDs (if one is lucky) - so, again, I am also using Linux because it runs what I need to run.
I simply would love to have some practical and relevant options for OSS operating systems. I fully understand that this is not going to happen and Linux won.