On 27/11/08 00:44, Ben Schmidt wrote:
> Teemu Likonen wrote:
>> Tony Mechelynck (2008-11-25 09:00 +0100) wrote:
>>
>>> SeaMonkey and Thunderbird are not only open-source and free-software
>>> but also cross-platform, maybe not as much as Vim but certainly more
>>> than Emacs.)
>> Your knowledge about different platforms is likely greater than mine and
>> I'm curious about this question of "being more cross-platform". How is
>> it measured in the open-source world? Is it about supporting different
>> operating systems? Or about different CPU architectures?
>
> I think it's all of the above. But it's not about what you list on your
> website: it's about what actually works. In effect, it becomes about
> working on systems that are different enough to require programmer
> effort, and within the context of the type of software being discussed.
> It's about how many systems, out of all those in existence, the user can
> compile and run the code on without having to know how to hack it.
>
> I.e. For much software, different architectures are not an issue--you
> just run it through a different compiler and it works. Though code that
> relies on the endianness of the architecture will be less cross-platform
> than code that doesn't. For things like compilers, many more aspects of
> the architectures need to be considered!
>
> Similarly, getting many things to work on an Amiga as well as Unix
> requires a lot of effort, so that distinction needs to be considered
> when evaluating 'cross-platform-ness'. But not necessarily for all code:
> for a simple filter, the distinction simply may not be relevant.
>
>> Or officially distributing more different ready-to-run builds?
>
> I don't think it's that. It's a property of the codebase, not a measure
> of the community's level of support for different systems.
>
>> SeaMonkey
>> =========
>> Windows (32bit), Mac OS X, Linux (x86), Linux/x86_64, OS/2,
>> Solaris 10 (SPARC), AIX 5L, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, IRIX,
>> Solaris and BeOS / magnussoft ZETA
>>
>> Vim
>> ===
>> Unix, MS-DOS, MS-Windows, Amiga, OS/2, Macintosh, QNX, Agenda, Sharp Zaurus,
>> HP Jornada, MS-Windows CE, Compaq Tru64 Unix on Alpha, Open VMS, RISC OS,
>> MorphOS, Cygwin (console), Cygwin (with GTK GUI)
>>
>> Emacs
>> =====
>> GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, AIX 4.3.3 and higher, Mac OS X, MS DOS,
>> MS Windows, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, SunOS, Ultrix,
>> Berkeley Unix (BSD) 4.1-4.4, Esix, Microport, SCO Unix,
>> System V releases 0 to 4.0.4, Uniplus 5.2, Xenix
>
> So...how to compare? Well, Vim lists very broadly 'Unix', which quite
> probably covers the BSDs, Solaris, System V, SCO, Linux, and others.
> They're not different enough for Vim to list them separately. But notice
> that Vim has Amiga and Macintosh which the others don't go near.
SeaMonkey's "MacOsX" distribution is a "Universal Binary" (including
separate machine code for both PPC and Intel Macs). Unlike Vim and Emacs
(both of which can run on a raw-text console), SeaMonkey is of course
GUI-only, which means some systems (such as MS-Dos) are irrelevant.
> Seamonkey has BeOS which the others don't touch. Emacs probably works in
> Cygwin, though it isn't listed separately, but doesn't go near OS/2.
>
> You could get better lists to compare by going through each and if that
> platform actually works for either of the other pieces of software,
> adding it to their lists. It's not without difficulties, either, but it
> would help.
>
> Looking at the lists myself, and having a fairly limited knowledge of
> OSes and architectures, I'd say to me it looks like Vim is most
> cross-platform, followed a fair way behind by SeaMonkey, closely
> followed by Emacs.
>
> Ben.
Best regards,
Tony.
--
Fuch's Warning:
If you actually look like your passport photo, you aren't well
enough to travel.
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