Re: tlug: Re: Many Faces on Linux

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "Manu" == Manuel M T Chakravarty <chak@example.com> writes:

    Manu> The fact that some Linux softo doesn't run on commercial
    Manu> Unixes is not so much a problem generated by the Linux
    Manu> people, I think, than a problem generated by the people who
    Manu> use and produce the commercial Unixes.

It's a bad interaction, but the Linux people are writing the software
so they're generating the problem.

    Manu> In the end, people having the necessary hardware and OS have
    Manu> to do the port.  So, if there is, say, no Solaris port for
    Manu> some software, you should blame the Solaris users (or Sun)
    Manu> who didn't try hard enough to port it, I think.  A second
    Manu> problem is, of course, that if the software needs some
    Manu> support from the kernel (eg, /proc file system), then, on
    Manu> Linux, the adept hacker can add the required support to the
    Manu> kernel and contribute the result.  On Solaris etc you are
    Manu> stuck, as you don't have the source.

So far, no objection.

    Manu> But you can't expect the developer on Linux to make his or
    Manu> her life more difficult by ignoring the features that are
    Manu> specific to Linux.

That's not the problem.  It's lack of modularity.  Every software
development textbook in the world tells you to isolate system
dependencies in a few modules.  The "Linux disease" aka the "DOS
disease" is that people don't.

True, it's almost always possible (hardware permitting) to port a
given software.  But the author can make it easy or hard by following
good or bad coding practices.  Many Linux authors do _not_ follow the
example of the kernel developers, and spread (typically redundant)
Linux dependencies throughout their source.

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