Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 10th Jan 2013 01:41 UTC, submitted by lucas_maximus
"A senior OpenBSD developer has complained on a mailing list that upstream vendors of free and open source software are adding in changes without any thought of whether downstream users could adapt to the change. Marc Espie said this would hurt smaller players by not allowing them to keep up with the changes. Basically what is happening is that numerous changes are being made to Linux and smaller projects like OpenBSD cannot keep up with the changes. And, according to Espie, not all these changes are strictly necessary."
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RE[10]: not all these changes are strictly necessary
by kwan_e on Thu 10th Jan 2013 23:02
in reply to "RE[9]: not all these changes are strictly necessary"
Member since:2007-02-18
The GNU tools aren't at fault it is developers that aren't conforming to the standard which is the problem.
It really is that simple. If I want a piece of software to run on another unix whether it is commericial or opensource it is a pain to port as discussed in the article.
It really is that simple. If I want a piece of software to run on another unix whether it is commericial or opensource it is a pain to port as discussed in the article.
What definition of "conforming" are you using? Does "conforming" mean not using extensions? If so, do programs that use, say, Qt libraries, non-conforming because they're not mandated by the POSIX standards?
But as the article and people here say, a lot of people aren't looking to have their things run on other unixes. They're not obligated to, especially since Linux is popular. It's the OpenBSD ports maintainers that want to port software.
RE[11]: not all these changes are strictly necessary
by lucas_maximus on Fri 11th Jan 2013 09:21
in reply to "RE[10]: not all these changes are strictly necessary"
Member since:2009-08-18
"The GNU tools aren't at fault it is developers that aren't conforming to the standard which is the problem.
It really is that simple. If I want a piece of software to run on another unix whether it is commericial or opensource it is a pain to port as discussed in the article.
It really is that simple. If I want a piece of software to run on another unix whether it is commericial or opensource it is a pain to port as discussed in the article.
What definition of "conforming" are you using? Does "conforming" mean not using extensions? If so, do programs that use, say, Qt libraries, non-conforming because they're not mandated by the POSIX standards? "
Oh comon, QT is different because it is a set of libraries and presentation framework.
If the extension is not part of the POSIX (whichever level is supported), and the script uses it is not conforming.
I think you have a fundamental mis-understanding of the issue.
The main complaint is that the Linuxism aren't needed and are relatively trivial to get around (such as the example given) and is a detrimental to other projects which aren't Linux.
Features
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Member since:
2009-08-18
The GNU tools aren't at fault it is developers that aren't conforming to the standard which is the problem.
It really is that simple. If I want a piece of software to run on another unix whether it is commericial or opensource it is a pain to port as discussed in the article.