Why most companies don’t develop software for Linux • Hacker News Board

Re: Why most companies don’t develop software for Linux

#21

Post by viraptor » Fri, Mar 12, 2010, 9:37 PM UTC

I don't get the "There is no binary compatibility between distributions" point really... Examples against it: Firefox, OpenOffice, Quake. They seem to work quite well on most distributions even as binaries.

Also - you can always write for Python / .NET / Java / ... and be portable for that VM.

Re: Why most companies don’t develop software for Linux

#22

Post by ido » Fri, Mar 12, 2010, 11:15 PM UTC

prewett wrote: post #8

There's not exactly compatibility between versions of Windows, either. Want your XP app to run on Win7? I hope you weren't planning to write to your install directory, since that will require a permissions change on Win7. That XP app is probably 32-bit, too, and if you are on 64-bit Win7 I hope the app isn't looking for "C:\Program Files" to find itself, since it's now in "C:\Program Files (x86)". Why is it still not…

> That XP app is probably 32-bit, too, and if you are on 64-bit Win7 I hope the app isn't looking for "C:\Program Files" to find itself, since it's now in "C:\Program Files (x86)".

I think most applications don't hard code system directory names since they differ not only between versions of windows, but also between languages (for example, I believe the aforementioned directory would be c:\programme on the german version of windows xp).

Re: Why most companies don’t develop software for Linux

#23

Post by vsync » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 2:36 AM UTC

1. Release the source code instead. Everyone will be better off.

2. If you do #1 the relevant distributions will package the app for you.

3. Valid point.

4. He says Emacs but doesn't specify XEmacs, so, off with his head!

Re: Why most companies don’t develop software for Linux

#24

Post by Auzy » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 8:33 AM UTC

You also forget that since the Linux kernel is GPL, its probably illegal to release closed source drivers (such as Nvidia's for Linux). I might be wrong, but we all know that the legal grey area Nvidia exploits if tested in court might not hold up. Nvidia though, despite using a closed source module is probably the main reason linux survived. Then again, what kind of sensible OS requires drivers to be recompiled to work the moment a kernel is upgraded?

Also, Microsoft goes to incredible lengths to ensure backwards compatibility (even with their competitors software), whereas any backwards compatibility in Linux seems to be coincidental.

Those are 2 reasons I use Windows 7 now. But that's just my opinion (all OS's these days have their own problems).