Why do we need such blessing? [LWN.net]

Why do we need such blessing?

Posted Mar 16, 2009 0:05 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: This is the same thing HTML5 is doing by bojan
Parent article: Ts'o: Delayed allocation and the zero-length file problem

Linux extends POSIX all the time. New syscalls, new features (things like "According to the standard specification (e.g., POSIX.1-2001), sync() schedules the writes, but may return before the actual writing is done. However, since version 1.3.20 Linux does actually wait."), etc. If application wants to use such "extended feature" - it can do this, if not - it can use POSIX-approved features only.

As for old POSIX systems... it's up to application writers again. And you can be pretty sure A LOT OF them don't give a damn about POSIX compliance. They are starting to consider Linux as third platfrom for their products (first two are obviously Windows and MacOS in that order), but if you'll try to talk to them about POSIX it'll just lead to the removal of Linux from list of supported platforms. Support of many distributions is already hard enough, support of some exotic filesystems "we'll think about it but don't hold your breath...", support for old exotic POSIX systems... fuggetaboudit!

Now - the interesting question is: do we welcome such selfish developers or not? This is hard question because the answer "no, they should play by our rules" will just lead to exodus of users - because they need these applications and WINE is not a good long-term solution...

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