Date: Wed, 28 Feb 1996 17:03:41 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: jehamby@lightside.com (Jake Hamby) Cc: jkh@time.cdrom.com, terry@lambert.org, hasty@rah.star-gate.com, root@dihelix.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Quake's out, where's that Linux ELF emulation? Message-ID: <199602290003.RAA09335@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.AUX.3.91.960228142023.29617A-100000@covina.lightside.com> from "Jake Hamby" at Feb 28, 96 02:25:05 pm
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> > > The situation is not aided by the fact that the BSD camp emulates > > > the Linux ABI sufficiently well that companies are of the opinion > > > that they can save themselves a porting effort. > > > > That depends on whether or not you view the UNIX market as one capable > > of sustaining native versions of all the major players anymore. No > > good winning a battle if it costs you the war. > > Well, certainly being able to run the Linux version is better than no > version at all, right? Also, if our Linux ABI is reasonably efficient > (as it seems to be), then would there be any significant further gain to > make a "native" port? For many applications, it seems unlikely. After > all, we're just patching Linux system calls through to our kernel, it's > not as if we actually have to go user their crummy KERNEL (although we do > have to use their shared libraries...). One could argue that it's better for Browsers that run on FreeBSD to report "FreeBSD" rather than "Linux" to the web sites it runs against. One could also argue that it's better to have "FreeBSD" than "Linux" on the outside of the box on store shelves. Finally, how do you answer "if it's a Linux program I want to run, why shouldn't I just install Linux instead of FreeBSD?"? > Anyway, I agree with Jordan on this, better to work on the ELF support in > FreeBSD then tell vendors, "Oh by the way, the Linux version of your > program works GREAT on FreeBSD, why don't you advertise it as > FreeBSD-compatible too (and maybe think about doing a native port for your > next version)?" :-) Clearly they won't even consider a native port in that case. A native port won't increase their "potential customer" count one iota if there is already a version that runs on FreeBSD. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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