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From: roque@oberon.di.fc.ul.pt (Pedro Roque Marques)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX)
Date: 17 Apr 1996 11:58:58 +0100
Organization: Faculdade de Ciencias da Universidade de Lisboa
Lines: 59
Sender: roque@oberon.di.fc.ul.pt
Message-ID: <84wx3f2k25.fsf@oberon.di.fc.ul.pt>
References: <NELSON.96Apr15010553@ns.crynwr.com>
<yfgbuktfn1w.fsf@time.cdrom.com> <3172AF35.15A9D29E@wolfenet.com>
<31734160.1332595A@lambert.org>
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In-reply-to: Terry Lambert's message of Mon, 15 Apr 1996 23:42:40 -0700
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>>>>> "Terry" == Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> writes:
In article <31734160.1332595A@lambert.org> Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> writes:
Terry> Telling questions.
Terry> The best answer is that ABI emulation is a disadvantage in
Terry> the race to get native ABI products.
Terry> If FreeBSD supports the Linux ABI, what is the incentive to
Terry> make a native FreeBSD port?
Terry> If there is not an ABI ceritification process and
Terry> developement tools to insure conformance, then the vendors
Terry> will not subsequently offer support for the product when it
Terry> is run in the emulation environment.
Terry> This has already caused there to be no FreeBSD "Netscape"
Terry> release, since it can run both the "Linux" and "BSDI"
Terry> versions, Netscape sees no reason to provide a native port.
Terry> The Linux ABI version is unsupported anyway, but the BSDI
Terry> version is preferentially unsupported when running in the
Terry> BSDI ABI environment because the certification process
Terry> caused the binary to be ceritified to run under BSDI, not
Terry> under the BSDI ABI.
Terry> One big win would be a written ABI specification, a
Terry> *publically available* test suite to make sure a system
Terry> implements the ABI from revision to revision, and a mode
Terry> switch for each compliant system to place it in "ABI ONLY
Terry> mode" to determine application conformance to the ABI.
A common ABI to free Unices. That would be great but...
From a user point-of-view what is an operating system but the software that
provides the ABI ?
Having an agreed upon ABI would make the different kernels nothing but
different algorithms of achieving the same OS. The next logical step would
be to stop confusing the end user and calling one name to it, no matter what
the particular set of kernel algorithms where in use.
While in terms of "the desktop war" this would be a clear adavantage,
personaly i don't believe the free Unix comunity would accept this.
I agree with you that this is technicaly possible but i doubt that
politicaly you can get there.
btw: Fresco would be a better bet than Motif IMHO. It is able to give you
Motif's look & feel and it seams to be Xconsortium bet in the UI area.
regards,
Pedro.
--
Pedro Roque ( roque@di.fc.ul.pt )
Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa
Departamento de Informática