[Erast Benson] > And thanks to upstream folks, 90% of OSS software is platform > independent and just works.
Just to get the facts straight here. I compile and port free software regularly to Linux, Solaris, Irix, HP-UX, Tru64 Unix, AIX and MacOSX, and do not share your view that 90% of "OSS software" (what is that? Lets call it free software for now), is platform independent. I regularly run into build problems on all of these, because most free software is never before compiled with an ANSI C compiler (only GCC, which have a number of "extentions" not supported by ANSI C), and need rewrites to compile on Irix, HP-UX and AIX, which happen to have good and strict ANSI C compilers. And there are heaps of endian problems (triggering on big-endian and alignment problems (triggering on hppa and sometimes sparc) too. Luckily, GCC is getting closer and closer to ANSI C these days, so perhaps some time in the near future, the code developed by free software developers will be platform independent. :) So I would say less than 20% of the free software is platform independent, based on personal problems. On the positive side, most of the upstream developers believe platform independence and standard compliance is a good thing, so patches are almost always accepted when submitted. :) Friendly, -- Petter Reinholdtsen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]