Re: Motif v lesstif - was Re: Netscape Communicator 4.01b6 ...
On Sun, 6 Jul 1997, Alex Yukhimets wrote:
>
> and david teague responded
> > If one has the library call interface and specifications, it seems to me
> > that it should be possible to write a library that is functionally
> > identical to Motif. If this is not true, I'd like for someone to explain
> > to me why.
> >
> > --David
Alex:
> I guess by functionally identical you mean binary compatible.
Yes, I do mean binary compatible.
> OK, one rude example. If among the set of library functions we also have
> some global variables (for completely internal use, not documented), they
> have to be linked to your program at compile-time, not run-time.
Isn't Motif available in shared libs? If so, this scenario might not be
the case. How do we find out about globals?
Phoenix wrote legal code for the IBM BIOS by a clean room techinque, one
set of engineers examining the code, writing specs, and another, clean,
set of engineers wrote code. WE could do this, but I think at this time
it is nearly impossible for most of us to contribute that much time.
> But even the goal of source code compatibility with Motif I consider
> unattainable (without examining Motif source code) due to the nature
> of Xlib - the layer behind Motif.
> Each call to its routine changes
> internal state of Xlib. If the same Motif library call implemented even
> by different order of Xlib calls in Motif and Lesstif, the internal
> state of Xlib might very well be different after this call. If the
> programmer also uses direct Xlib call after calling some Motif routine
> (absolutely legal thing), the result of this call may also be different
> in Lesstif and Motif implementations, which immediately breaks even source
> code compatibility.
I think this could be done by reverse engineering Motif. Is that legal?
At any rate, I HOPE you are wrong! I am willing to bet that the first
scenario is not valid, but that the second may well be a problem,
adn hope you are being unnecessarily pessimistic!
At any rate, thanks for the insights!
--David
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