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The whole concept of "supporting Linux" is odd. Linux is a kernel. As a Mac user I don't go around asking if people support XNU. A company like Netflix has to
by mapgrep 14y ago
The whole concept of "supporting Linux" is odd. Linux is a kernel. As a Mac user I don't go around asking if people support XNU.
A company like Netflix has to target relatively consistent environments -- operating systems -- so a much more honest question would be to ask if Netflix will support Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, Debian, Mint, etc. In that case, the question is its own answer ("no, none of those are big enough"). Diversity can be a weakness just as it can be a strength.
- jiggy2011 14y agoTechnically true, but when people say "Linux" they usually mean "GNU/Linux" and usually in the context of a desktop or server. Once you support one distro you are essentially supporting them all, even if not officially. Even though Ubuntu is going in it's own direction with Unity etc pretty much all of the base libs are the same. I could understand if they said "Yes, we support Ubuntu 12.04 only" in which case that would basically mean "you can probably get it to work on any distro under the sun but don't call us about it".
- dllthomas 14y agoLinux is a kernel, with a bunch of distros built on top of it, with a large degree of compatibility between them. There have been various efforts at standardization, with various degrees of success; it's not perfect, but getting something to work on, say, Fedora and Ubuntu is a much smaller task than getting something to work on Windows and Mac, and if something works on one distro it's usually possible to get it to run on your distro of choice with some finagling.