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Proposal For Gnome To Become Linux-Only

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the oh-that'll-be-fine dept.

Moderator writes "Could Gnome drop support for non-Linux operating systems? That was a recent proposal on the Gnome mailing list, although there were significant objections in response. Quoting: 'It is harmful to pretend that you are writing the OS core to work on any number of different kernels...the time has come for GNOME to embrace Linux a bit more boldly.'"

1 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Dumb Idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is a dumb idea for software architecture reasons, too. I'll explain.

    When writing a Windows application, you must recognize that the interface between your application and TODAY'S version of Windows must remain fluid such that you can support changes delivered by patch or by OS release. This is known formally as "decoupling" and it is necessary to isolate big systems that need to communicate. Decoupling is important for unix applications as well, because kernels change over time and APIs vary slightly between unixes.

    If you truly believe your application gains anything by eliminating a decoupling library/layer, you have missed the point of the past few DECADES of object-oriented programming.