[openbeos] Re: binary compatibility
- From: "Hugo Santos" <hugo_santos@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 03:30:05 +0100
I talked this with Marcus Overhagen the other day..
i told him of my concerns about binary compatibility, and how i thought
source compatibility
was a better way to go, this way you can provide a new implementation
bug-free (coff) but
with BeApi's interface. Also this would speed the development alot..
searching for bugs and
implementing them is a nag :)
Hugo Santos
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Reinhold" <danielr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2001 2:40 AM
Subject: [openbeos] binary compatibility
>
> Here's a snippet by Eugenia from OSNews:
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> Our Take: I am sorry if I sound negative, but after discussing details
> about the Open BeOS project with several ex and Be engineers the last
> few days, they all came to (an easy for them) conclusion that this
> project is going nowhere. Exactly because there are shortcomings in the
> BeOS design, and because not all bugs or features of BeOS are known
> from outsiders, it will be impossible to replicate the technology
> without having the original BeOS source code. But what the team CAN do,
> is to aim for source compatibility, not binary. While the threading,
> bugs(!), locking and other details will behave differently between the
> BeOS and OpenBeOS, it is already times easier to port BeOS applications
> to OpenBeOS than trying to run them unmodified. This way, if the team
> become really dedicated, we may see some good progress in less than a
> year, othewise it will take years to come even into an alpha state
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> What do you think about this?
>
> She may be right. At least as far as what is worth aiming for. I mean,
> technically, you can't say that its *impossible* to implement binary
> compatibility -- nothing's impossible in programming given enough time
> and resources -- but it might well not be worth it. Besides, what
> progammer wants to bust his ass month after month carefully trying to
> recreate some else's bugs?!
>
> Binary compatibility is a nice concept because it means instant access
> to the thousands of apps written for the BeOS. But source compatibility
> might be good enough. You have to convince hundreds of developers
> (especially ones who haven't published their source) to recompile, but,
> if OpenBeOS is a success, I don't think this will be too hard.
>
> In a way, source compatibility is a better goal in the sense that it
> lets you implement things in whatever way works best. The programming
> API is the same, but the underlying code is as slick as you are capable
> of making it.
>
> Still, it's a deviation from the original charter. Should we re-think
> this?
>
>
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