The only way cross-platform works is if both platforms are in lockstep with the interfaces they supply. Of course that will slow down development on both plato

The only way cross-platform works is if both platforms are in lockstep with the interfaces they supply. Of course that will slow down development on both platofrms. In some cases, this works great right now for mature interfaces and you can use certain tools on FreeBSD, Ubuntu Linux, and RedHat Linux interchangeably because they are using consistent interfaces. Where the interfaces aren't strongly consistent (or there are leaky abstractions), then it all falls apart.