On Wed, Apr 06, 2005 at 03:30:51PM +0100, Mike Hearn wrote: > Or, I could say: yes, you're exactly right. It means you can't drop any > library that programs could depend on. That is operating systems for you. > Are you building an operating system, or merely a random snapshot of bits > that work together today but might not tomorrow? FC always includes all the libraries that programs it ships depend on. Are we saying that we can't drop any library that any program, no matter how old, no matter how unmaintained depends on? With Free Software you can at least pick up the pieces and port or patch, but it's a nearly unsurmountable problem with non-Free programs. It's a debate that RedHat, Fedora, and Linux in general has had for a long time. How much to compromise things in order to accomodate non-Free software? It's fair to say that backwards compatibility is *the* feature of Microsoft OSes. They spend a ridiculous amount of effort in order to assure that all sorts of broken old programs work on their newer systems, even putting in single-app-specific hacks when necessary for large enough applications. Now I'm not saying that you're arguing for going that far, but people who like Linux because they like Free Software are not enthused about bending over backwards to keep the non-Free stuff working. John Thacker
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