The LinuxWorld Conference & Expo here this week has drawn fewer people who came to learn what Linux is all about and more who are ready to buy Linux products that can deliver cost saving, performance and reliability. That was the view expressed by several LinuxWorld attendees who took time out to talk about what they saw and liked at the show.
No comments? And to a very important point. Ultimately when all is said and done. The OS is boring. It’s apps that give reason for having an OS.
Linux needs a stable standards based means of developing for the OS. Then the serious third parties will start to developing.
You are sort of right. Sort of, because I can understand the other side – no API is perfect, so why lock yourself into one?
The small changes (from apps’ point of view) did not stop e.g. Opera and Oracle developing their products for Linux. Also Real (real-player, helix), Macromedia (flash plugin), Sun (java stuff). ID Software. And this is just from the top of my head.
A stable API would definitely help, but you can’t claim there are no third-party apps for Linux.
Well take a look at Oraacle or even the Email App they mention Scalix. It supports 2 main distro’s of Linux Suse and RedHat. I tried installing the Redhat enterprise version on CentOS 4…it choked. All the Linux people are yelling how great it is to have the choice of 400 different linux distros and how third parties have ported their software to Linux. When the truth is they have proted them to RedHat or Suse which equate to less than 1% of the entire linux environment. Is it too much to ask for a standard linux API that is part of all 400 Distro’s? So that any developer can write a linux app and have it work just fine on Suse or RedHat as it does Mandriva? Slackware? Debian?.
I believe you missed the point of my post.
For one, I’ve got Oracle DB running on Debian/Sid. An ever changing distro. It is not officially supported, but it works. That says something about how much the API changes (not).
Also, Oracle officialy supports more than RedHat and Suse.
The “400” distros have got their point – “to each his own”, “the right tool for the right job”. Desktop, Live, Server, Firewall, Small… Each has different requirements and is solved in a different way.
Is it too much to ask for a standard linux API that is part of all 400 Distro’s?
No, but it comes at a price. The price is, that if you later realize your API has got problems, you can’t change it. It seems to me, that to “Linux developers” (though there is no such thing – there are Linux kernel developers, glibc developers, X developers, distribution maintainers who cooperate, but do not form one group) the ability to fix mistakes has more value than atracting 3rd party producers of closed-source applications. They are the developers and it is their call, whether to officially say “this API might change in the future”, or say “we will have 100% backward compatibility” and later code hacks so Simcity can run, though it should get a SIGSEGV in reality (Microsoft did that with Windows, I believe). They made their choice.
Sure, the second option is more attractive to 3rd party vendors. However, has it ever occured to you that the “Linux developers” might have a different goal?
As for non-changing APIs – look at Apple’s OS. I’m not sure how much it changed during the 68k->PowerPC switch, but they introduced (and are continuing to introduce) new APIs in the OS X series. Also Microsoft. I’m not a Windows guru, but AFAIK you cannot use W2K drivers in WXP, nor in the 2003 server and vice-versa. So much for stable APIs.
So that any developer can write a linux app and have it work just fine on Suse or RedHat as it does Mandriva? Slackware? Debian?.
I believe Opera with their browser and Macromedia with the Flashplayer succeeded to do this. So did the producers of some versions of Unreal Tournament and ID Software with Doom and Quake.