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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
byMikkeles ( 698461 ) writes:
'...is it time to concentrate on consolidation and standardisation in GNU/Linux in general, and the desktop in particular?'
Good luck.
bybonch ( 38532 ) writes:
That part in the summary amused me:
[I]s it time to concentrate on consolidation and standardisation in GNU/Linux in general, and the desktop in particular?"
It was time ten years ago when Linux was first gaining real momentum in that area. I remember posting Slashdot comments about it and getting told Linux was about "choice" and that if I didn't like it, I should contribute code. Ten years later, even Google is bashing Linux for it. I bet nothing will change even now.
Linux is a server OS, only used on th
byosu-neko ( 2604 ) writes:
Linux is a server OS, only used on the desktop by enthusiasts.
I would hope that all desktop OS's are used by enthusiasts. People who run Ubuntu should do so because that's what they like. People who run Mac OS X should do so because that's what they like. People who run Windows should do so because that's what they like. If people are running an OS for some other reason, then we have problems...
Accept it, because the kind of standardized APIs that are needed are not going to happen with the attitudes that this community has.
Indeed. If we were to reject that attitude and simply standardize around a single way because it's best if everyone runs the same, we'd all run Windows. There's no logica
bydave562 ( 969951 ) writes:
In the context of the story, the issue at hand is that Google is being pressured by "the Linux community" to develop a version of their browser "for Linux". If your Debian desktop is different than my Fedora desktop, then we can't both run Chrome. Either Google targets Fedora, or Debian, or OpenBSD, or, or or... That's the "problem" (challenge?) with "developing for Linux." In many instances there isn't a Linux standard. Even different flavors of Linux have different versions of the kernel. If the ker
byPeter La Casse ( 3992 ) writes:
In the context of the story, the issue at hand is that Google is being pressured by "the Linux community" to develop a version of their browser "for Linux". If your Debian desktop is different than my Fedora desktop, then we can't both run Chrome. Either Google targets Fedora, or Debian, or OpenBSD, or, or or...
If the code base is already cross-platform, then the idiosyncrasies of different Linux distributions are minor; making it run on Debian and Fedora is much easier than making it run on Windows and Mac
byPeterBrett ( 780946 ) writes:
Yes, when distributing binaries one must target not only a specific distribution, but a specific release and a specific CPU architecture as well.
This is not true. If you make a binary installer with your own link libraries for all of the dependencies you need, you can successfully make a closed-source release which works on just about any kernel since 2.6 with the correct architecture. The Linux userspace ABI is very stable.
If you want to use open-source libraries that would make such a binary blob legally difficult, that's your choice.
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byPeter La Casse ( 3992 ) writes:
I stand corrected. Is X as binary compatible as the kernel?
byPeterBrett ( 780946 ) writes:
Yes: don't forget that X is a client-server architecture, and that the protocol has been stabilised & standardised for years. You don't have to be using a client library which matches the server version, although that might affect what X extensions you can use.
The client-server stuff is what makes X so interesting (and powerful) IMHO.
byAnonymous Coward writes:
Confirmed. I'm actually working on a large proprietary app (yes we do often submit improvements to projects we make use of ;), and a binary-only, pre-built single-distribution release to run on several moderately similarly-dated x86 distributions can be implemented relatively easily. That's not to say that it's a snap, but it can be done with moderate trouble, even with a very "special" (one could say weird) application.
Of course it's very debatable whether it is a good idea to distribute one single binary
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