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This is kind of OpenBSD's vibe. They tend to be ok with breaking backwards compatibility in favor of their idea of forward progress. It's pretty counter to Mic
by kelp 5y ago
This is kind of OpenBSD's vibe. They tend to be ok with breaking backwards compatibility in favor of their idea of forward progress.
It's pretty counter to Microsoft's incredible investment in backwards compatibility. Or Linus' "don't break user land" philosophy.
I'd think if we had a spectrum of backwards compatibility, with the most being on the right it might look something like this:
OpenBSD ---> macOS/iOS ---> Linux ---> Microsoft
I think in the OpenBSD case, due to limited developer resources, and a cultural bias towards simplicity, this is the tradeoff they decided to make. Even at the cost of more users.
- sbierwagen 5y ago>and a cultural bias towards simplicity, this is the tradeoff they decided to make Literally the only point of an operating system is to be a stable API for other people to write software on top of. If you're not doing that, then why make an OS?
- nix23 5y agoSince the BSD's are not meant to run proprietary binary's on top, just recompile your code and everything is fine. Linus want's that the OracleDB's of the World can run on his system...that's is fine i think ;)
- jrockway 5y agoI don't think people are using PF to write software on top of -- they use OpenBSD specifically to run PF. You should look at upgrading OpenBSD in this use case to upgrading the firewall software. It's a different case than mere "I compiled this application 6 months ago and I want to run it today", which is the "stable API" part of an OS that you mention.
- vvanpo 5y agoIf that were the only point to an operating system, why doesn't Windows have a monopoly in all areas of computing? Surely there are other considerations beyond stability to be had when choosing an operating system?
- torstenvl 5y agoLinux has terrible backwards compatibility, a fact well known to anyone who runs Linux on Parallels without wanting to pay the yearly tax. macOS deprecated a lot of kernel APIs from Catalina to Big Sur, but there were tons that were around for a decade before.