Microsoft hits new ethical low point?

[rlk at alum.mit.edu (Robert L Krawitz)]

   From: Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU>
   Date: 16 Feb 2001 12:33:50 -0500

   <Devil's Advocate>
   But I have to recompile my software for every release of Linux,
   Solaris, IRIX, OSF/DUnix, *BSD, etc.  I don't have to recompile my
   software for Windows.  Once I've built it, it works.  It will work on
   all variants, and it will work on all systems.  I can't even build a
   single Linux application that will work on all versions of a single
   release of Linux (it wont work across Linux/x86, Linux/sparc,
   Linux/ppc, Linux/alpha, etc.)
   </Devil's Advocate>

Aside from what was pointed out about "working" across all versions of
Windows, you'd hardly expect binaries to work very well across
processor architectures.  Sure, there was the hack to run x86 binaries
on Alpha, but that means you're either wasting the capabilities of the
Alpha chip or you're not compatible, either.

As for binary compatibility within UNIX, Solaris is also quite strict
about maintaining backward compatibility, and Solaris/x86 can run
Linux binaries with lxrun.

-- 
Robert Krawitz <rlk at alum.mit.edu>      http://www.tiac.net/users/rlk/

Tall Clubs International  --  http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2
Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail lpf at uunet.uu.net
Project lead for Gimp Print/stp --  http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net

"Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works."
--Eric Crampton
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