[naturalmovement]

The *BSDs, Mac, and Windows all keep critical code in the same tree as the OS.

Something like disk encryption would be immediately visible.

So you don't have this mess of 80 different distros with 60 different versions of systemd, 20 that don't use it, a million kernel versions and it's all thrown together in a Costco-sized trash bag and we call the output "Linux".

[yaris]

In my experience any software system (not just operating system) after crossing a certain limit on complexity and age looks exactly as hodgepodge of code pieces thrown together, sometimes from different sources even if developed by one org. All major OSs have long crossed those limits, I believe.

[brainwad]

Windows for ages did not really keep all the code in one repo. There were like a dozen parallel repos for e.g. the shell, kernel, IE, etc. Also every feature was developed on team-level branches; integrating all those branches often caused unexpected bugs.