Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a stable ABI is only needed when you don't have the source > A stable ABI is only needed when you don't have the source or you don't know enough C to fix incompatibilities with every new version. There, I fixed it for you.
That is mixing up a stable ABI vs a stable API. OpenBSD is sort of the poster child here, They notoriously do not have a stable ABI, I would not want to try and ship closed source software on obsd, it would be an absolute nightmare. But their API is very stable (insert counterexample of the recent pledge change here) An interesting side effect of obsd changing their ABI fairly often is they are good at it(add comment…
It's the compiler too. I recently found out that kernel 6.6 can't be compiled by gcc 15. So, even if you have the source, unless it's extremely simple, at some point the current toolchain will refuse to build it.