Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU.!yallara!ashelton From: ashelton@yallara.cs.rmit.EDU.AU (A Shelton) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX) Date: 17 Apr 1996 03:39:54 GMT Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia Lines: 52 Message-ID: <4l1p6a$1h1@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <jdd.829261293@cdf.toronto.edu> <yfglok14n5r.fsf@time.cdrom.com> <316ECE94.61162F47@dark.mountain.stronghold> <4kntvi$hmm@agate.berkeley.edu> <199604161742.SAA02177@kythera.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au NNTP-Posting-User: ashelton X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #1 (NOV) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:21631 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:651 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3275 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3107 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:17560 comp.os.linux.advocacy:46040 Ray Auchterlounie <rda@kythera.demon.co.uk> writes: >Sam E. Trenholme <set@ucsee.EECS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote: >[...] >>It is my hope that Caldera, with their desktop environment, and the porting >>of applications to this environment (such as Word Perfect, Mathematica, and >>WABI), will help increase the popularity of Linux. However, you can see >>the resistance to this in the Linux newsgroups-- the gripes that Caldera >>is not as flexible to set up as Slackware, the gripes about the fact that >>Caldera is not supporting Word Perfect/WABI on non-Caldera Linux systems. >>This resistance is a contradiction. People want Linux to catch on, but >>do not want it to make the necessary changes needed to make Linux catch on. >Locking applications into one Linux distribution is NOT a _necessary_ >change though - and it is IMO a highly undesirable one. I remember following this discussion but I don't remember this conclusion. Caldera is basically redhat and, apart from licensing restrictions, there was no suggestion they had been made gratuitously incompatible. Indeed caldera (in the form of ron holt?) said that suggestion lists for getting software running on other dist's was a good idea. As for not as flexible..hahaha.. That's the whole point. They want to market a 'simpler' and 'friendlier' linux to the microsoft dominated desktop...did you think that would come at no cost in power? A newbie and hacker OS will never look the same, and that's by choice. >By doing this the commercial Linux vendors are starting to do the same >as the other commercial unix vendors. Instead of looking for >compatibility and interoperability they are trying to lock users into >their one-true-linux. Perhaps, some certainly will, but as their linux must be under the GPL it shouldn't be too hard to work out the differences and make a compatibility module for their software should it? > >It's not difficult, for example, to envisage some applications only >being available for Linux-FT-Posix-Certified and others only for >Caldera. The different distributions may not always run on the same >hardware. There's not much difference between: In most cases if something runs on a Posix certified OS and doesn't run on standard linux kernels then its helped discover misbehaviour in linux, since Posix compatibility seems to be valued by most of the developers. -- Linux, because raw power can be....addictive. Andrew Shelton s9406182@yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au GCS(2.1)-d+H+sw+v-C++UL+>L+++E-N++WV--R++tv-b+D++e+fr*y?