> My doubt is to what degree mere numbers of those > whose experience > or knowledge is limited to Linux are worth > attracting. In the long run, > maybe numbers are needed for mind-share. But in the > short run, unless Solaris > meets their expectations out-of-the-box by default (a > disgusting concept IMO, > although perhaps different packaging and defaults are > a good excuse for > another distro, although I'll always think both > personalities ought to be > trivially available regardless, with the means of > packaging, distribution, and > the default behavior the main differences), they're > going > to be disappointed anyway. You see, I think many > (not all, of course) have > limited themselves into thinking Linux is a superset > of Unix (or indeed simply > the only thing that matters), which it isn't by a > long shot. So I wonder > whether merely giving them a few (or even a lot of) > familiar command and > keystroke convieniences will encourage them to start > writing application code > portable enough that it goes from Linux to Solaris > anywhere near as easily > as much code typically goes in the opposite > direction. And _no_way_ do > I want to see a bunch of Linux APIs adopted > wholesale, although some of > them may well represent useful ideas (or at least > harmless ones perhaps > worthwhile to ease porting), esp. in the areas of > audio, networking, > and maybe tape I/O.
Excellent summary. My sentiments exactly. And in the unlikely case these users make the jump to Solaris, giving them Linux functionality will be just another excuse not to learn Solaris fully. Isn't the whole point of this excersise to get developer to use Solaris as the primary development platform? Plus I'd like to add, to write truly portable apps, one needs the experience one can get only with learning and understanding UNIX. Linux knowledge is insufficient for such a feat. I see this all too well during all the painful porting I'm forced to do when I try to get a piece of freeware / open source software to compile on UNIX platforms. This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
