I think what they're trying to say is, if Windows was a community project those requirements likely wouldn't exist to begin with.

You ran Windows 11 on a 286???

I don't run Windows at all. I'm probably not up to date on the latest developments, the last time I checked, there was a compatibility check for your hardware. Anyway, it seems strange to me that Windows would run fast on an old machine—are you sure about that?

Little known fact is that a lot of computers that ran/run Windows 10 is not supported by Windows 10 (check supported CPUs for Windows 10). The difference is that Windows 10 doesn’t actively block you from installing it.