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You misunderstand. I am saying that all that effort was spent chasing the long tail of compatibility, which is valuable if compatibility is one of your big sell

You misunderstand. I am saying that all that effort was spent chasing the long tail of compatibility, which is valuable if compatibility is one of your big selling points. However, one need not go to such extremes to get a good amount of compatibility, just don't have a policy of breaking ABIs constantly the way Linux Desktop does.

necovek 5y ago
Ok, I see your premise now. I am not sure I agree: do you know of a system that has seen less investment on backwards compatibility yet successfully maintains it? Of course, not "frozen" like TeX, but seeing active feature development too.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Pretty sure HaikuOS runs software originally compiled for BeOS in 1995. They have a very small development team and they are quite active today. ...for that matter WINE is even able to make Linux compatible with Windows applications to a great extent, and they certainly aren't backed with Microsoft's wealth of resources.
necovek 5y ago
And let me address the "policy of breaking ABIs constantly the way Linux Desktop does." As you probably know, there is no policy, and no "Linux Desktop" either. You've got Linux distribution releases that are supported for up to 10 years (like RHEL and Ubuntu LTS) by teams a couple of orders of magnitude smaller than either of MacOS or Windows. They usually get HWE kernel updates too (hardware enablement) from newer Linux series. By definition, they maintain ABI backwards compatibility for the duration of their support. If you care about it, that's what you should use. But it's in the nature of free software world to want to mix and match, so the idea of a singular Linux Desktop does not exist. You should treat each one of them as a separate OS, which is unfortunate, but realistic. Flatpak/snapcraft recognise that to a point (packaging up everything but the kernel, regardless of the system packages already installed).
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  > As you probably know, there is no policy, and no "Linux Desktop" either. Yes, a common refrain. > You've got Linux distribution releases that are supported for up to 10 years (like RHEL and Ubuntu LTS) by teams a couple of orders of magnitude smaller than either of MacOS or Windows. Yes, and they're not really equivalent because they keep everything stable. An OS like Windows or MacOS keeps the platform stable and allows applications to be bleeding edge or not as desired. This way applications are typically distributed on Linux make this very difficult, hence things like Flatpak. Regarding the team size, I can only say that if everyone worked on the same "distribution", that gap would be significantly reduced. Instead the Linux Desktop world delights in duplicating effort, so here we are. > But it's in the nature of free software world to want to mix and match, so the idea of a singular Linux Desktop does not exist. You should treat each one of them as a separate OS, which is unfortunate, but realistic. If that is the policy, then no one should be surprised when developers choose not to target a non-platform that doesn't exist.

necovek 5y ago

Ok, I see your premise now. I am not sure I agree: do you know of a system that has seen less investment on backwards compatibility yet successfully maintains it? Of course, not "frozen" like TeX, but seeing active feature development too.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
Pretty sure HaikuOS runs software originally compiled for BeOS in 1995. They have a very small development team and they are quite active today. ...for that matter WINE is even able to make Linux compatible with Windows applications to a great extent, and they certainly aren't backed with Microsoft's wealth of resources.

necovek 5y ago

And let me address the "policy of breaking ABIs constantly the way Linux Desktop does." As you probably know, there is no policy, and no "Linux Desktop" either. You've got Linux distribution releases that are supported for up to 10 years (like RHEL and Ubuntu LTS) by teams a couple of orders of magnitude smaller than either of MacOS or Windows. They usually get HWE kernel updates too (hardware enablement) from newer Linux series. By definition, they maintain ABI backwards compatibility for the duration of their support. If you care about it, that's what you should use. But it's in the nature of free software world to want to mix and match, so the idea of a singular Linux Desktop does not exist. You should treat each one of them as a separate OS, which is unfortunate, but realistic. Flatpak/snapcraft recognise that to a point (packaging up everything but the kernel, regardless of the system packages already installed).

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
> As you probably know, there is no policy, and no "Linux Desktop" either. Yes, a common refrain. > You've got Linux distribution releases that are supported for up to 10 years (like RHEL and Ubuntu LTS) by teams a couple of orders of magnitude smaller than either of MacOS or Windows. Yes, and they're not really equivalent because they keep everything stable. An OS like Windows or MacOS keeps the platform stable and allows applications to be bleeding edge or not as desired. This way applications are typically distributed on Linux make this very difficult, hence things like Flatpak. Regarding the team size, I can only say that if everyone worked on the same "distribution", that gap would be significantly reduced. Instead the Linux Desktop world delights in duplicating effort, so here we are. > But it's in the nature of free software world to want to mix and match, so the idea of a singular Linux Desktop does not exist. You should treat each one of them as a separate OS, which is unfortunate, but realistic. If that is the policy, then no one should be surprised when developers choose not to target a non-platform that doesn't exist.