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Date:      Fri, 24 Feb 1995 19:21:20 -0800 (PST)
From:      Terry Lee <terryl@CS.Stanford.EDU>
To:        freebsd-hackers@freefall.cdrom.com
Subject:   Re: Binary compatibility with NetBSD 
Message-ID:  <Pine.SUN.3.91.950224191419.21399H-100000@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <29525.793670669@freefall.cdrom.com>

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> > The problem of course is shared libraries.  As far as I know, at the
> > system call level the systems are almost completely compatible (and if
> > they aren't, they should be).  But there's nothing official to
> > distinguish whether a program uses FreeBSD or NetBSD shared libraries.
> 
> I spent a little time talking about this with Mike Karels (BSDI) and
> Chris Demetriou (NetBSD).
> 
> The conclusion was that shared library compatability was a false grail
> and should not be pursued.  It's hard, it's easily broken (meaning you
> get stuck in this thankless loop of fixing it over and over again as
> the libraries themselvse change) and in the case of BSDI, a rather
> difficult target to hit anyway (they will have an entirely different
> shared lib strategy).
> 
> I know it would be useful and make the users happy, but neither I nor
> anybody else I know is willing to sign up for the work involved so it's
> just better to assume it isn't going to happen.

Huh?  I'm sorry, but I guess I'm missing something here.  I thought that 
is was a high priority to keep NetBSD and FreeBSD and BSDI as binary 
compatible as possible.  Does this mean that future apps that use the 
shared libraries will not be binary compatible?  If so, what percentage 
of apps use the shared libraries?

Terry

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I   n   D   i   G   o      Terry Lee                            
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