From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Sep 15 18:10:31 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7E667106564A for ; Sat, 15 Sep 2012 18:10:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd-questions@m.gmane.org) Received: from plane.gmane.org (plane.gmane.org [80.91.229.3]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 37C4F8FC17 for ; Sat, 15 Sep 2012 18:10:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1TCwp6-0001hb-Lc for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Sat, 15 Sep 2012 20:10:32 +0200 Received: from pool-173-79-84-117.washdc.fios.verizon.net ([173.79.84.117]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 15 Sep 2012 20:10:32 +0200 Received: from nightrecon by pool-173-79-84-117.washdc.fios.verizon.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 15 Sep 2012 20:10:32 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org From: Michael Powell Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2012 14:10:18 -0400 Lines: 17 Message-ID: References: <7FB6587CC36F4140A852E74D9DFE4512@yahoo.com> <44ECA0421F9A4C5A826B76AFE629A2EA@yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: pool-173-79-84-117.washdc.fios.verizon.net Subject: Re: 8.1 -> 8.3 X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: nightrecon@hotmail.com List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2012 18:10:31 -0000 Laszlo Danielisz wrote: > Great Mike, > May I ask what is ABI? > ABI is short for Application Binary Interface, and is a low-level interface between programs and the operating system [kernel] they run on. You may have seen API as well - short for Application Programming Interface. This generally/usually is relevant to programs talking to other programs. In FreeBSD, if changes to the ABI are deemed necessary, this will generally serve as a demarcation point between one major version revision and the next one coming along, e.g 7.x, 8.x, 9.x, and so on. -Mike