From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 21 14:44:33 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 927DF106564A for ; Thu, 21 Jul 2011 14:44:33 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bruce@cran.org.uk) Received: from muon.cran.org.uk (muon.cran.org.uk [IPv6:2a01:348:0:15:5d59:5c40:0:1]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CC2F68FC0A for ; Thu, 21 Jul 2011 14:44:32 +0000 (UTC) Received: from muon.cran.org.uk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by muon.cran.org.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1ABA0E6CBF for ; Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:44:31 +0100 (BST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed; d=cran.org.uk; h=message-id :date:from:mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; s=mail; bh=e5n6pxpNNGZE tXjHRDYxe4vFaas=; b=PRMtZuT+/GEkI/hDU4gDx6LRlNC52SzpG9JppsQinj0x KrWHkKSkqzuImSZcLH/KhWr1yPFo8f4yQsrYpail58QdB7EWF+r3U9Z7s9KBcw8X dJefEZfrqlT3bRq4gutDjnW7W8WT0UbgKTnRMdMOYSjyQljLMaaAziEbZeTDecc= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=cran.org.uk; h=message-id :date:from:mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; q=dns; s=mail; b=Tu/l1v 0l/i6Yxdh0tOep/3X2jPPDWZFYChzueLS0LDRSugtuDlfHPFCtYhlU4N1+BqtApe pQjhlT3nphNIL0HbXqmJdz0Uesy0X/Q/QzArwspyskmtrsAAWGbcZ+8mKIA/QKJU z6N1YWr27P4i0HXZhjkpAa5++Qc56mWbg3OxA= Received: from [192.168.1.64] (188-222-18-231.zone13.bethere.co.uk [188.222.18.231]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by muon.cran.org.uk (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id DA98BE6C67 for ; Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:44:30 +0100 (BST) Message-ID: <4E283B4E.4010303@cran.org.uk> Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:44:30 +0100 From: Bruce Cran User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:5.0) Gecko/20110624 Thunderbird/5.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <24466_1311199850_4E27526A_24466_7987_1_D9B37353831173459FDAA836D3B43499C521866E@WADPMBXV0.waddell.com> <4e28160e.bVryeJCK1esNt615%perryh@pluto.rain.com> <20110721141534.GC59455@guilt.hydra> In-Reply-To: <20110721141534.GC59455@guilt.hydra> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: 2020: Will BSD and Linux be relevant anymore? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2011 14:44:33 -0000 On 21/07/2011 15:15, Chad Perrin wrote: > It may not be anything so exotic. On a per-release basis, the MS > Windows ABIs and APIs change far more dramatically than the Linux > kernel, and are far less transparent to developers; they must in many > cases be discovered by experimentation, being closed source software. > Over a given period of time, the changes to Linux may be greater in > number and magnitude (I'm not a kernel hacker, so I wouldn't know for > sure), but they're spread out over time rather than bundled in a major > collection of changes with a new marketing campaign. This might make > it much more difficult to target the MS Windows ABIs and APIs. I'm > just speculating, though. As I said, I'm not a kernel hacker. On Windows, the APIs don't change that much (there are new functions for NUMA support in Windows 7 for example), but certain ABIs change with each service pack. However, since a lot of drivers built for Windows XP can still install on Windows 7, an effort appears to be made to maintain a stable public ABI - Microsoft recommends using the build environment for the earliest version of Windows that you want to target. On Linux, the API/ABI issue is far worse, since you have a different ABI between different builds of the same kernel. -- Bruce Cran