What's a developer to do?

[Jon maddog Hall]

Bruce,

I would be interested in a pointer to the author.  His verbiage is a little
"loose" for anyone to understand completely:

> the dynamic builds will not work on all Linux systems
> Is LSB dead (again)?

What does he mean by "all"?  All LSB V3.x compliant systems, or XYZ Linux
distro that has done no testing or certification against LSB?

Are the libraries that he is trying to get to work outside the LSB specification?

> and where a binary no longer works across Linux  releases, let alone on
> another distro

Again, what is a "Linux release"?  A release of the kernel?  A release of a
new LSB spec?

Is *his* application written to LSB?  The LSB plainly states that if you use
libraries and interfaces outside its realm, that you have to include those
libraries with your application.

I don't mean to start a diatribe on this subject, but I would appreciate
getting more information from the author.

Thanks,

md
===============================================================================
From: Bruce Dawson <jbd at codemeta.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 09:02:23 -0400
To: GNHLUG <gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org>

I ran across this on the Starkit mailing list... (Starkits are a way of
packaging TCL modules so they are portable across architectures and OS.)

The author laments:

"I'm starting to lose the battle with Linux - the dynamic builds will
not work on all Linux systems, and the static builds are doing such
nasty things in libc nowadays that they too probably won't work  without
specific libc.so's on your system.  Apparently the world is  moving
towards a state where only Linux distro builders can produce  proper
binaries, and where a binary no longer works across Linux  releases, let
alone on another distro (what a total cop-out compared  to Windows!). "

I thought this battle was fought (and won by at least VMS) back in the
80's. What happened? Is no one fighting the upgradability challange
anymore? Isn't Perl, Java, Python, ... having similar issues? Are
individual corporate interests winning out over general user/developer
interests? Don't Linus and RMS care anymore? Is LSB dead (again)?

--Bruce
-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director           Linux International(R)
email: maddog at li.org         80 Amherst St. 
Voice: +1.603.672.4557       Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
WWW: http://www.li.org

Board Member: Uniforum Association, USENIX Association

(R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries.
(R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used pursuant
   to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus
   Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis
(R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other
   countries.