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From: veit@mururoa.gmd.de (Holger Veit)
Subject: Re: SHARED LIBRARIES - THE END
Message-ID: <1993May24.180328.6324@gmd.de>
Sender: veit@mururoa (Holger Veit)
Nntp-Posting-Host: mururoa
Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, Germany
References: <PC123.93May22195506@bootes.cus.cam.ac.uk> <1993May23.003623.24102@fcom.cc.utah.edu> <1tr05o$qaa@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu>
Date: Mon, 24 May 1993 18:03:28 GMT
Lines: 48
In article <1tr05o$qaa@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu>, pauls@css.itd.umich.edu (Paul Southworth) writes:
|> In article <1993May23.003623.24102@fcom.cc.utah.edu> terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) writes:
|> >My personal misgivings on the issue are based on me being, basically,
|> >in competition with Pete for the shared library consumers, and the
|> >timing with regard to the 0.2 release.
|>
|> Um, how can there be competition when 386BSD is not a commodity? You all
|> are producing freely distributable code, right? As long as there is
|> interest in both packages, why should there be only one? I mean, apart
|> from your respective egos, in what sense can this competition exist?
|> Please clarify. I mean, it would be neat to have the two of you work on
|> one package, but I don't consider it a great loss that you choose to
|> work separately -- it's your code after all.
I have tried to explain exactly this in the previous posting. I have to
defend Terry here (although he can very well speak for himself). It is
not a problem of ego here. The difficulties are of a technical nature.
There is nothing to say against two implementations of the same kind,
like two implementations of a com driver, for instance. The difference
between com drivers and shared libs is that for the first there is a
well-defined interface, and whether the particular implementation is
faster or more compact, or better documented, is secondary; you can
simply replace one with the other without significant loss (unless
it is exactly speed, or size, or documentation you require).
This is not the case with the two shlib implementations that have
become known to the public so far. Since they are independent
'island' works, developed without knowledge of the current background
of the active scene, they are mutually incompatible. So you won't
be able to replace one easily with the other, if you like. Furthermore,
if you do not compile all of your binaries by yourself, and this
for instance holds for X11 for a considerable part of the 386bsd usership,
you have to deal with (here two, but possibly more) different sets of
binary-shlib sets.
Maybe the term "competition" is unlucky here, or we have a different
connotation of this term. It is certainly not a marketing competition,
in which who comes first will serve first.
|>
|> pauls@umich.edu
Holger
--
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