it should be noted that there is a increasingly active KDE/OpenSolaris project already, so the "porting to Solaris" bit in Alvaro's blog is a weee bit misleading perhaps.
i'm really happy to see these discussions happen. i'd like to add some value to the discussion by addressing this point:
"[..] but I don't think it would be possible to support [KDE on OpenSolari] (ABI stability and C++ incompatibilities are still huge problems - besides all the politics" - Alvaro Lopez Orega
first, OpenSolaris is not Solaris. just because something is available for OpenSolaris or even included with it does not mean it needs to be part of support contracts or among the internal engineering efforts that Sun offers. honestly, there are lots of other companies that can pick up that slack should Sun decide not to capitalize on the opportunity, particularly in Europe.
second, while i understand, appreciate and respect Sun's commitment to ABI issues, it's probably useful to point out that other OSVs manage to support KDE just fine. c++ ABI issues have calmed down dramatically in recent years and KDE does have an ABI commitment for our own libraries. perhaps Sun people just aren't aware of all the effort we go to on that front. and, well, it's not like other desktop projects are particularly wonderful at ABI issues either. so it seems to me that if Sun had the desire to do so, but can't manage the same trick ... i'd be very surprised. Sun has a lot of great people working there, and the "can't do" attitude i discover when it comes to the desktop is not the sort of creativity and imagination i've come to expect from their engineers.
in other words, the "ABI!" concern is a red herring. i hope people let it off the hook so it can go join its friends in the cool murky depths below .....
3 comments:
A possible interpretation would be that they have information about a pending C++ ABI breakage on behalf of the Sun compiler team.
While my personal experience says that the Sun C++ compiler is extra ordinary, especially when it comes to finding "warning" issues, their closer relation ship with Sun might have them worry about immediate or short term changes coming up in said compiler.
...so they don't "support" any C++ libraries?
"[..] but I don't think it would be possible to support [KDE on OpenSolari] (ABI stability and C++ incompatibilities are still huge problems - besides all the politics" - Alvaro Lopez Orega
I'm not entirely sure what that means, or what "all the politics" means specifically. It just sounds like a discussion many people just don't want to have. At some stage I think OpenSolaris, and Sun, are just going to have to look at demand and look at what the better desktop might be for people and what people want.
If they don't look at that then, from all the things I can see happening today on the open source desktop front, I can honestly see Sun continuing to run another CDE while everyone moves on to something else. Had to be said really.
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