[oi-dev] OpenIndiana and illumos, part 2

[Alasdair Lumsden]

On 19 Nov 2010, at 23:42, Garrett D'Amore wrote:

> On Fri, 2010-11-19 at 23:00 +0000, Alasdair Lumsden wrote:
<snip>

>> All completely fine - the only point I would like clarification on is "No consideration for the converse ability to run software built for illumos on Solaris 11".
>> 
>> I'm completely fine with it not being a development concern, but I'm struggling to understand why, eg GNU Nano, compiled on Illumos wouldn't work on Solaris 11. As far as I know nobody has proposed modifying the compiler suites (with Sun Studio we can't, for example) and most 3rd party software hasn't been written to use specific Illumos features (yet). So why would a binary compiled on Illumos look any different to one compiled on Solaris 11?
>> 
>> I'm definitely *not* asking Illumos to change their stance on this, this is more so that myself (and no doubt others) can fully comprehend the ramifications/future considerations of the statement.
>> 
>> I think it would be a shame if FOSS software compiled on Illumos/OI didn't run on Solaris 11, but obviously it wouldn't be the end of the world. It would just be useful.
> 
> We won't go out of our way to bust this, but we won't limit ourselves
> either.  So if we e.g. add a useful function, perhaps from a new POSIX
> standard or perhaps from Linux, and the software is compiled to use it
> (because autoconf detects it for example), then the resulting binary
> might not work on Solaris 11.

Oh right okay, if that's all we're talking about then really this is a big hoo-haa about nothing! I don't think anyone is going to oppose changes like that. It's welcome progress.

So I don't see an issue at all - I'm pretty sure our goals are aligned.

Alasdair.