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Linux is absolutely terrible with this, it sits on the "extremely unlikely" end whereas Windows sits on the other in terms of backwards compatibility. It's not
by 59nadir 3y ago
Linux is absolutely terrible with this, it sits on the "extremely unlikely" end whereas Windows sits on the other in terms of backwards compatibility. It's not surprising either because the entire ecosystem runs on the myth that shared libraries are desirable when any serious look into them shows that almost no space is saved, almost none of them are actually shared by a meaningful amount of apps, almost no actual security issues are avoided by using them.
Anyone who has ever been interested in having someone else be able to run their program has figured out a long time ago that you have to ship your dependencies for them to be able to do so.
- memefrog 3y agoI have never had any issue running old programs. Shared libraries have nothing to do with Linux. They are an entirely userspace concept.
- 59nadir 3y agoThat would be a great point were it not for the fact that virtually all Linux distros run everything on shared libraries. I like Linux but this is one aspect of it that has never done it any favors. It was probably a decent choice at one point but it has ceased being one. I reckon it has held back the Linux application ecosystem for over a decade for no reason at this point.
- memefrog 3y agoThere is nothing wrong with shared libraries. If you want to run an old program, you need to also run old libraries, and old network services it communicates with, and maybe old hardware too. Libraries are no different. In practice it just isn't an issue, because competent application developers don't tie themselves to particular versions of libraries, and competent library developers don't make gratuitous backwards-incompatible changes. Nobody is forcing you to depend on incompetently-written malware like GTK+.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]