🚀 go-pugleaf

ajayshah@alhena.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes:

>We are seeing a very nice flowering of the free Unixes available
>(obviously in source).  Linux is now in v.95 and BSD v0.0 have arrived
>(both for the 386).  BSD might become available for SPARC, and GNU is
>said to be aiming for 386 and SPARC.
>
>My question is: to what extent do these projects care for and ensure
>binary compatibility of applications?
>
>I can imagine several directions from which this could be useful.
>First, if any of these is to have a ghost of a chance in the
>commercial world, they have to adhere to ABIs.  Both the 386 and SPARC
>hvae a well-defined ABI.
>
>Apart from the commercial market, I see binary compatibility as being
>quite useful "for us" as well.  E.g., many (if not most) hackers would
>want a working TeX.  It seems suboptimal for each of us to have to
>open up the TeX source distribution and make it from scratch.  Look at
>how convenient (e.g.) EmTeX is: you simply unpack the archives and
>setup environmental variables and you have a working TeX.
>
>It takes a lot of programs to make up a "comfortable Unix working
>environment".  Binary compatibility and the availability of programs
>in binary form would reduce the setup cost of getting there.
>-- 
>
>Ajay Shah, (213)749-8133, ajayshah@usc.edu


Hooray for the free Unixes!

One (about the only) problem I see with just distributing binaries is the
following question:

   Given the prevalence (sp?) of viruses and such in the PC (binary mostly)
world, would you trust your computer to some strange binary that someone
else has compiled?


   - David Summers

-- 
                         "Never under-estimate the bandwidth of a station-wagon
David Summers             full of tapes, hurtling down the highway."
dws@engr.uark.edu         - Tanenbaum, "Computer Networks"