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> UNIX you mean. Not the GP but generally speaking it’s not a great reach to say that Linux is more widely supported than POSIX. GNU-only flags are often used

> UNIX you mean. Not the GP but generally speaking it’s not a great reach to say that Linux is more widely supported than POSIX. GNU-only flags are often used in shell scripts and you’ll often find binaries are packaged as a snap or Docker container thud anyone running a non-Linux system is left to compile that project themselves. Even WINE itself doesn’t officially support all POSIX-compatible UNIXs.

smoldesu 5y ago
Yep. WINE is a second-class citizen on any platform that isn't Linux (as is most POSIX-like software these days), and requires special patches just to run on MacOS (and even paying for Crossover won't give you 32-bit binary support on Mac). For better and worse, the POSIX spec is dead. Besides a few niche use-cases where compatibility with archaic software is necessary, Linux is the new standard for this stuff.
- q-big 5y ago
  > Linux is the new standard for this stuff. Linux is not a standard, because in opposite to, say, POSIX, it is not standardized, but is an everchanging implementation.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    I don't mean it in a literal sense, though I get where you're coming from. Think of it this way: your server software's stability is more or less defined by how well it conforms to Linux compatibility. Even software that is designed with perfect POSIX compliance won't run reliably on the majority of servers. Linux, despite not being a standard, has become a spec for server software. The kicker is that nobody can really undermine them unless you can create a true alternative with a more compelling license than GPL. If our industry wants to return to a truly standardized status-quo, we need to put aside our differences and collaborate on a next-gen spec that works. Considering that we barely did this in the 80s with POSIX, I seriously doubt today's developers and researchers are capable of doing it again. I'd love to be proven wrong though.
- mrpippy 5y ago
  CrossOver does run 32-bit Windows EXEs on macOS

smoldesu 5y ago

Yep. WINE is a second-class citizen on any platform that isn't Linux (as is most POSIX-like software these days), and requires special patches just to run on MacOS (and even paying for Crossover won't give you 32-bit binary support on Mac). For better and worse, the POSIX spec is dead. Besides a few niche use-cases where compatibility with archaic software is necessary, Linux is the new standard for this stuff.

q-big 5y ago
> Linux is the new standard for this stuff. Linux is not a standard, because in opposite to, say, POSIX, it is not standardized, but is an everchanging implementation.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I don't mean it in a literal sense, though I get where you're coming from. Think of it this way: your server software's stability is more or less defined by how well it conforms to Linux compatibility. Even software that is designed with perfect POSIX compliance won't run reliably on the majority of servers. Linux, despite not being a standard, has become a spec for server software. The kicker is that nobody can really undermine them unless you can create a true alternative with a more compelling license than GPL. If our industry wants to return to a truly standardized status-quo, we need to put aside our differences and collaborate on a next-gen spec that works. Considering that we barely did this in the 80s with POSIX, I seriously doubt today's developers and researchers are capable of doing it again. I'd love to be proven wrong though.
mrpippy 5y ago
CrossOver does run 32-bit Windows EXEs on macOS