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000142_bobp@theworld.com_Mon Jun 10 12:31:32 EDT 2002.msg
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Article: 13441 of comp.protocols.kermit.misc
Path: newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu!panix!nycmny1-snh1.gtei.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!elk.ncren.net!news.umass.edu!world!shell01.TheWorld.com!bobp
From: Bob Parkhurst <bobp@theworld.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.solaris,comp.protocols.kermit.misc
Subject: Re: C-Kermit 8.0 for Solaris 9?
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 11:56:21 -0400
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Xref: newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu comp.unix.solaris:395138 comp.protocols.kermit.misc:13441
On 10 Jun 2002, Frank da Cruz wrote:
> In article <ae0o8r$4at$1@new-usenet.uk.sun.com>,
> Andrew Gabriel <andrew@cucumber.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> :
> : OK, I'll stop speaking for other commercial UNIXs, but Solaris
> : at least guarantees this. If you find some case where it fails,
> : you should raise a bug on it.
> :
> Yes, but we don't know yet whether it works because we have spent
> more time discussing why it should not be tested than it would have
> taken to test it. Trusting a new operating system to be free of
> bugs -- or even incompatibilities with previous releases -- is an
> act of blind faith. The fact is, nobody can possibly know whether
> a complex application like C-Kermit (over 280,000 lines of source at
> last count), with its fingers in every nook and cranny of the file
> system, network code, serial device code, and who knows what else,
> will build and work in Solaris 9 without trying it.
>
> In my experience with Unix, every new release of every Unix variety
> (a) capriciously moves header files around and creates conflicts
> among them that did not exist before; (b) messes with the UUCP
> lockfile conventions; (c) changes how the serial driver works
> (usually with respect to ill-defined Unix concepts such as hardware
> flow control or high serial speeds), (d) changes the data type of
> some critical quantity (e.g. from short to int, int to long), and
> on and on.
>
> Even if Solaris were perfect in preserving backwards compatibility
> of binaries, we still want to make sure the application compiles
> and links; otherwise if we need to make changes and old Solaris
> versions are no longer available to build on, we're stuck.
>
> Even if the Sun development environment were perfect in preserving
> backwards compatibility of source code, we'd still have gcc to
> worry about, thanks to Sun's enlightened policy of not including
> developer tools with Solaris.
>
> Even if all that was guaranteed worry-free, why make a special
> case of Solaris when we must make new builds for every new release
> of every other operating system because, in general, they can't be
> trusted to preserve backwards compatibility?
>
> So again: if somebody would please take the trouble to try building
> C-Kermit on Solaris 9 with cc and/or gcc and give it a run-through,
> I'd appreciate it:
>
> ftp://kermit.columbia.edu/kermit/archives/ckx201.tar.gz
>
> Alternatively, if I can get a guest ID on a Solaris 9 system, I'll
> do the testing and any needed adaptation myself.
>
> Thanks.
>
> - Frank
>
I agree with Frank who has more experience with this problem than just
about all of us. It would be nice if new versions of operating systems
were compatible with old ones, but we can't assume anything. It doesn't
take much to cause a problem. At least we're talking about unix here and
not windoze. Kermit is a great product and we can't take it for granted.
--
Bob Parkhurst
Data Intelligence Systems Corp.