FreeLists / openbeos / [openbeos] Re: binary compat [was Re: Re: BFS and encryption.]

["Michael Phipps" <mphipps1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Quoth David Sowsy:
>>> compatibility mentioned back when R5 was still being worked on be 
>>> be,inc (gcc 3.0, better kernel virtual memory , performance issues, 
>>> etc), so it might not be a bad idea to consider doing so if there are 
>>> compelling reasons for us to do so.  yes, it would be a good thing to 
>>> keep compatability if possible, but it should not be so sacred that we 
>>> get into the mess of trying to keep compat with a 20 year old os. ;)  
>>
>>We're not trying to keep compatibility with a 20 year old, us, but
>>to just run out and immediately break binary compatibility is foolish.
>>A 6 mos. (minimum) to a one or two year window to 'Phase out'
>>compatibility is more appropriate.
>
>Wouldn't it be possible to provide people with backwards compatibility
>for older binary formats?  I know netbsd does this, and even has extended
>it to linux/freebsd/solaris/etc compatibility..  Of course, in order to
>have a dynamically linked executable run, you have to have the old libraries
>around someplace, but that's not much of a loss for the usability gain, imho.

Theoretically, I think that it is. Is the trouble worth the result? All depends 
on the
amount of work and the amount of gain. Gain, I think, would be pretty high.
Trouble is something only a few people in the know could guesstimate.