From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 21 17:17:38 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 A5388106566B for ; Thu, 21 Jul 2011 17:17:38 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from perrin@apotheon.com) Received: from oproxy6-pub.bluehost.com (oproxy6-pub.bluehost.com [67.222.54.6]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 708AC8FC08 for ; Thu, 21 Jul 2011 17:17:38 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 27627 invoked by uid 0); 21 Jul 2011 17:17:38 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO box543.bluehost.com) (74.220.219.143) by cpoproxy3.bluehost.com with SMTP; 21 Jul 2011 17:17:38 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=default; d=apotheon.com; h=Date:From:To:Subject:Message-ID:Mail-Followup-To:References:Mime-Version:Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To:User-Agent:X-Identified-User; b=HqSDC3R+x6c/1AU/ln0/3s0j4xxMhsYszR3dUwm8ao/zyQCcjNYQt0qia3zkn4Xpmrwaqlh9FALlE5stuf5/r2Ov/EHDvkhmay8E0AVB6vfkW/S/jZoRaXeH4eBBJmLc; Received: from c-24-8-180-234.hsd1.co.comcast.net ([24.8.180.234] helo=kukaburra.hydra) by box543.bluehost.com with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QjwsS-0004OT-Sr for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Thu, 21 Jul 2011 11:17:37 -0600 Received: by kukaburra.hydra (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Thu, 21 Jul 2011 11:00:55 -0600 Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2011 11:00:55 -0600 From: Chad Perrin To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20110721170055.GD69370@guilt.hydra> Mail-Followup-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> <4E283B4E.4010303@cran.org.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="k4f25fnPtRuIRUb3" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4E283B4E.4010303@cran.org.uk> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.3i X-Identified-User: {2737:box543.bluehost.com:apotheon:apotheon.org} {sentby:smtp auth 24.8.180.234 authed with ren@apotheon.org} 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 17:17:38 -0000 --k4f25fnPtRuIRUb3 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 03:44:30PM +0100, Bruce Cran wrote: > On 21/07/2011 15:15, Chad Perrin wrote: > >It may not be anything so exotic. On a per-release basis, the MS=20 > >Windows ABIs and APIs change far more dramatically than the Linux=20 > >kernel, and are far less transparent to developers; they must in many=20 > >cases be discovered by experimentation, being closed source software.=20 > >Over a given period of time, the changes to Linux may be greater in=20 > >number and magnitude (I'm not a kernel hacker, so I wouldn't know for=20 > >sure), but they're spread out over time rather than bundled in a major= =20 > >collection of changes with a new marketing campaign. This might make=20 > >it much more difficult to target the MS Windows ABIs and APIs. I'm=20 > >just speculating, though. As I said, I'm not a kernel hacker.=20 >=20 > On Windows, the APIs don't change that much (there are new functions for= =20 > NUMA support in Windows 7 for example), but certain ABIs change with=20 > each service pack. However, since a lot of drivers built for Windows XP= =20 > can still install on Windows 7, an effort appears to be made to maintain= =20 > a stable public ABI - Microsoft recommends using the build environment=20 > for the earliest version of Windows that you want to target. On Linux,= =20 > the API/ABI issue is far worse, since you have a different ABI between=20 > different builds of the same kernel. I suspect those drivers are the drivers that have *survived*. I saw hardware suddenly stop working because of driver issues just between SP1 and SP2 of XP -- including, in one case, the hard drive that had the OS on it. The system would start booting, then unload the driver because it was not "compatible", thus losing contact with the very hard drive from which it was loading the OS. Maybe I was just lucky, though. --=20 Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] --k4f25fnPtRuIRUb3 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (FreeBSD) iEYEARECAAYFAk4oW0cACgkQ9mn/Pj01uKVjPACg1PS1lwRxRli1ydAd3lIAfGhN OaIAnRuVG6TPeiyX//65nCScazanb6aV =Z2co -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --k4f25fnPtRuIRUb3--