On Tuesday, 21 August 2012 at 15:15:02 UTC, David Piepgrass wrote:
Finally, it's Windows-only (although it has been reimplemented on Linux, e.g. for WINE) and modules must be registered in the Windows Registry.
Conceptually COM is just a set of ideas for interoperable component design, which happens to actually work across languages and frameworks: .net, C, C++, Delphi, D. Registry works only as a centralized repository of components which is needed if you want to plug arbitrary components into your system, it has nothing to do with the problem of fragile ABI.
