Steve Lamb wrote:
Ryo Furue wrote:
This is not a Linux-vs-Unix issue, but I've recently been experiencing
a downside of Linux. I think one of the biggest problems for developers
of commercial software for Linux is that there's no such thing as "the"
Linux OS. There are simply too many combinations of the kernel version,
libc version, pthreads version, etc. to support all. The consequence is
usually the vendor supports only the RedHat Linux.
Which is FUD. How is it all these other software projects are able not
only to support Linux but Free/Open/NetBSD, Solaris, etc, etc, etc?
Because they put in exra effort to make it so.
IIUC, the original poster was pointing out that a small developer might have the resources to put out an application that runs on 90% of the personal computers out there. He'd like to collect another 5% of the market with several *nix versions, but that means he has to acquire the resources (training or hiring, etc) to develop for a dozen different *nix implementations. Sure it can be done. And it might even be done fairly easily as a tarball. But the vendor may not know that, or he might want to present a pointy-click installation instead of a tarball. The point of the original poster is not that these things can't be done; it was that that there is "no such thing as 'the' Linux OS." Instead there is the RPM-based Linux OSes, and the 2.4-based Linux OSes, etc. If these differences really don't matter, then that message needs to be disseminated to developers, because right now developers think it takes too much work. Whether that's correct or not, that seems to be the perception.
-- KEnt
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