Microsoft hits new ethical low point?

[Jerry Feldman]

I can't speak for Solaris and IRIX, but for Compaq Tru64, you should be 
able to run most software compiled on an earlier relase on a later 
release. Their rules on binary compatibility are very strict to the point 
where they have many duplicate functions in libc to maintain binary 
compatibility. With few exceptions, I can take a program compiled on DU 
4.0 and run it on 4.0F, 4.0G as well as 5.0 through 5.1. I am currently 
porting a major commercial profiler/debugger. We are building the library 
on 4.0F, but that library will work on all future releases. even system 
calls are compatible. For example, the stat() family of functions changed 
significantly in 5.0, but they not only maintained the functionality such 
that a program built on 4.0 could use it in 5.0. And, you can even build 
on 5.0 with the intent that your code run on 4.0. There are some caveats, 
but the engineering people are very careful about this. 

Since it is not uncommon for you to have sources on Linux, the there is 
much less reliance on binary compatibility. 
 
On 16 Feb 2001, at 12:33, Derek Atkins wrote:

> <Devil's Advocate>
> But I have to recompile my software for every release of Linux,
> Solaris, IRIX, OSF/DUnix, *BSD, etc.  I don't have to recompile my
> software for Windows.  
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Associate Director
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org
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