Unix users make the claim that Unix code is more portable than Windows code. "Why," they say, "you can "just compile" gnu fileutils on any old unix---even on windows. But Microsoft can't port IE to Solaris without man-years of work."
Windows users say, "I can run the same binary that worked on DOS 1.0 on Windows 2000 server. Unix can't do that, Unix is not as portable as Windows."
This hilights the difference between Unix and Windows ideas of portability---Unix portability is in terms of providing the same API on many platforms and calling a recompile portable. The Windows way is by adding a new API every few years, but endlessly dragging along the old ABIs. (Is it really true that you can't compile to the win16 ABI with recent Microsoft development tools?)
If Linux is emerging into the world of Windows, people evangelizing it either need to educate others on what we mean when we say "portable", or use the word in the way the Wintel world expects to hear it.
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Unix users make the claim that Unix code is more portable than Windows code. "Why," they say, "you can "just compile" gnu fileutils on any old unix---even on windows. But Microsoft can't port IE to Solaris without man-years of work."
Windows users say, "I can run the same binary that worked on DOS 1.0 on Windows 2000 server. Unix can't do that, Unix is not as portable as Windows."
This hilights the difference between Unix and Windows ideas of portability---Unix portability is in terms of providing the same API on many platforms and calling a recompile portable. The Windows way is by adding a new API every few years, but endlessly dragging along the old ABIs.
(Is it really true that you can't compile to the win16 ABI with recent Microsoft development tools?)
If Linux is emerging into the world of Windows, people evangelizing it either need to educate others on what we mean when we say "portable", or use the word in the way the Wintel world expects to hear it.