Choosing between portability and innovation

Posted Mar 3, 2011 9:31 UTC (Thu) by roblucid (guest, #48964)
In reply to: Choosing between portability and innovation by airlied
Parent article: Choosing between portability and innovation

The ATT & BSD strands of UNIX diverged on features that were innovated like :

1) Reliable Signals
2) Virtual Memory
3) Shared Memory / Semaphores
4) Streams
5) FIFO's
6) TERMCAP & curses(3) (re-implemented by ATT as termlib with enhancements)

Given the widely perceived fragmentation of Linux distros, with tweaked features sets, for instance deb v rpm, it's naive to think you can write without regard to portability. Even with FHS, applications end up having to account for cosmetic differences between distros.

Portabiity is a requirement, otherwise you prevent change and innovation, and trust me you would not get much done stuck on Version 6 UNIX.

Look at the problems discussed with move to IPv6 last month!!! Portability allows the whole FOSS ecosystem to evolve and adapt.

Choosing between portability and innovation

Posted Mar 3, 2011 23:49 UTC (Thu) by jmorris42 (guest, #2203) [Link]

> Portability allows the whole FOSS ecosystem to evolve and adapt.

Amen. Without portability we wouldn't where we are now. More importantly, we will eventually be boned without it. Sooner or later Linux comes to the end of the road. The landscape will eventually change such that someone will realize it is time for a total redesign of what an OS is and if nothing is portable that new effort will fail, leaving us in a dead end to wither away.