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I think the biggest takeaway from this is the amount of poorly thought out software that exists there which assumes that Linux is the only unix. From the link o

I think the biggest takeaway from this is the amount of poorly thought out software that exists there which assumes that Linux is the only unix. From the link on page about porting Dart -- https://github.com/dart-lang/sdk/issues/10260 https://github.com/dart-lang/sdk/issues/10260 -- people have gotten it working, but upstream is completely silent on porting patches and working with people on getting the required alterations in-tree. Even starting with the basics, like the shell interpreter, too much software assumes that bash is part of the base user space, instead of a package that will be somewhere other than /bin. It just feels that after Linux hit a certain amount of market share, too many developers decided that portable well-written code wasn't worth it, and ignored the millions of systems that run other operating system, to the detriment of everyone.

nickpsecurity 10y ago
"I think the biggest takeaway from this is the amount of poorly thought out software that exists there which assumes that Linux is the only unix." That's true. The biggest takeaway, though, is the assumption that people will care to port mainstream software to OpenBSD when virtually nobody using that software runs OpenBSD & their community discourages amateur programmers. It's not a wise expectation. Instead, they should expect to have to port it all themselves to their particular OS of choice while being thankful when people do it for them with great portability. In that case, you'd have a bunch of semi-functional desktops out there running OpenBSD with a ton of features and options on Linux desktops. (Pauses.) Exactly what happened.
- mulander 10y ago
  > That's true. The biggest takeaway, though, is the assumption that people will care to port mainstream software to OpenBSD when virtually nobody using that software runs OpenBSD & their community discourages amateur programmers. It's not a wise expectation. Instead, they should expect to have to port it all themselves to their particular OS of choice while being thankful when people do it for them with great portability. You got it a bit wrong or didn't read the linked github issue in detail. I run OpenBSD and I ported Dart to OpenBSD. I tried to work with upstream (Dart team at Google) to incorporate my changes or work on a way that allows them to take the changes and for me to maintain the code long term. In this specific case the upstream works behind closed doors which makes it hard to cooperate on things like this.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    Oh, I read it right: " I ported Dart to OpenBSD. I tried to work with upstream (Dart team at Google) to incorporate my changes or work on a way that allows them to take the changes and for me to maintain the code long term. " You wanted them to work so that your unpopular OS is supported. My claim was that you'd have to fork it and do the work yourself in many cases since the OS project is for benefit of you and small niche of developers/users. The irony is that comments like that deride non-OpenBSD FOSS for not going through trouble of OpenBSD support while the LibreSSL commits mocked and stripped OpenSSL's support of VMS, etc. as crap that's not worth the effort users be damned. Same attitude in place. The Dart team is probably targeting Windows, Mac, and Linux (w/ Android). Those are THE desktop OS's in terms of uptake and capabilities available. Adding PC-BSD, OpenBSD, eComstation OS/2, Syllable, BeOS, MorphOS, MenuetOS... these could benefit someone but represents lots of work with almost no gain due to near-zero market share. So, for niche projects, it's on you to get the work done if your goals and theirs aren't compatible. They're doing nothing wrong even if a bit non-optimal given benefits of portable code tested on many toolchains.
digi_owl 10y ago
> I think the biggest takeaway from this is the amount of poorly thought out software that exists there which assumes that Linux is the only unix. If shit continues like it has been as of late, it may well be that they start thinking Fedora is the end all, be all, of unix...
juped 10y ago
Portablity isn't even hard. Some maintainers just have a tendency to get huffy and say "but I've always used Linux, so all Linuxisms are correct" - I think this tendency derives from GNU's entirely deliberate use of embrace-and-extend tactics with its ecosystem of GPLed code. But that's OK. We have a ports tree, we don't need upstream.

nickpsecurity 10y ago

"I think the biggest takeaway from this is the amount of poorly thought out software that exists there which assumes that Linux is the only unix." That's true. The biggest takeaway, though, is the assumption that people will care to port mainstream software to OpenBSD when virtually nobody using that software runs OpenBSD & their community discourages amateur programmers. It's not a wise expectation. Instead, they should expect to have to port it all themselves to their particular OS of choice while being thankful when people do it for them with great portability. In that case, you'd have a bunch of semi-functional desktops out there running OpenBSD with a ton of features and options on Linux desktops. (Pauses.) Exactly what happened.

mulander 10y ago
> That's true. The biggest takeaway, though, is the assumption that people will care to port mainstream software to OpenBSD when virtually nobody using that software runs OpenBSD & their community discourages amateur programmers. It's not a wise expectation. Instead, they should expect to have to port it all themselves to their particular OS of choice while being thankful when people do it for them with great portability. You got it a bit wrong or didn't read the linked github issue in detail. I run OpenBSD and I ported Dart to OpenBSD. I tried to work with upstream (Dart team at Google) to incorporate my changes or work on a way that allows them to take the changes and for me to maintain the code long term. In this specific case the upstream works behind closed doors which makes it hard to cooperate on things like this.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  Oh, I read it right: " I ported Dart to OpenBSD. I tried to work with upstream (Dart team at Google) to incorporate my changes or work on a way that allows them to take the changes and for me to maintain the code long term. " You wanted them to work so that your unpopular OS is supported. My claim was that you'd have to fork it and do the work yourself in many cases since the OS project is for benefit of you and small niche of developers/users. The irony is that comments like that deride non-OpenBSD FOSS for not going through trouble of OpenBSD support while the LibreSSL commits mocked and stripped OpenSSL's support of VMS, etc. as crap that's not worth the effort users be damned. Same attitude in place. The Dart team is probably targeting Windows, Mac, and Linux (w/ Android). Those are THE desktop OS's in terms of uptake and capabilities available. Adding PC-BSD, OpenBSD, eComstation OS/2, Syllable, BeOS, MorphOS, MenuetOS... these could benefit someone but represents lots of work with almost no gain due to near-zero market share. So, for niche projects, it's on you to get the work done if your goals and theirs aren't compatible. They're doing nothing wrong even if a bit non-optimal given benefits of portable code tested on many toolchains.

digi_owl 10y ago

> I think the biggest takeaway from this is the amount of poorly thought out software that exists there which assumes that Linux is the only unix. If shit continues like it has been as of late, it may well be that they start thinking Fedora is the end all, be all, of unix...

juped 10y ago

Portablity isn't even hard. Some maintainers just have a tendency to get huffy and say "but I've always used Linux, so all Linuxisms are correct" - I think this tendency derives from GNU's entirely deliberate use of embrace-and-extend tactics with its ecosystem of GPLed code. But that's OK. We have a ports tree, we don't need upstream.