What's a developer to do?

[Bruce Dawson]

Jon maddog Hall wrote:
> Bruce,
> 
> I would be interested in a pointer to the author.  His verbiage is a little
> "loose" for anyone to understand completely:

I've attached his message to this one.

>>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?

He never mentioned LSB - I did because my understanding was that it is
supposed to solve this kind of problem.

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

Not unless glibc is outside LSB! But I suspect his complaint arose
because someone tried to run the application on a "common" linux system
and ran into library version skew.

>>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?

My guess is that a "Linux release" is meant to be GNU/Linux; a
combination of kernel, libraries, configuration files, and associated
"glue" programs to make it operate as a cohesive unit.

> 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.

His application is TCL. Evidently, he runs into problems even if he uses
static libraries.

Since its designed to be platform agnostic, it needs to run on not just
LSB systems, but Windows and Macintosh. He's lamenting that its easier
to build and distribute an application for Macs, Windows and other
platforms than it is for Linux.

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

Thanks for responding, but I really wasn't expecting a response from
you! I was expecting other GNHLUGers to say "what's the problem" or "But
TCL is way out on the fringes, so who cares" or something like that.

But I have to admit that I've run into similar problems in the past, and
switched to Java in an attempt to solve them. Then I went back to TCL
because it would actually run on dissimilar systems and with a much
smaller footprint.

> Thanks,

And thank-you!

--Bruce

> 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
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Subject: [Starkit] new tclkit builds
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