Re: A little bad press about Debian
Bill Wohler wrote:
> And yet, such an optimistic outcome is not a sure thing. Minor
> examples of Linux forks already exist. When Tom Stoddard, database
> administrator at BFGoodrich's Avionics Division, loaded backup
> software on company servers in Grand Rapids, Mich., he found an
> unexpected anomaly. The software operated right off the bat on
> servers using Caldera, Red Hat and Mandrake installations of
> Linux. But when he tried to get it to work with a fourth version,
> one called Debian, the desktop backup software from Legato Systems
> failed.
>
> The technical diagnosis: "Debian must have some libraries in a
> different location than the others," he said, meaning that some
> functions added by Debian to Linux cannot be retrieved in the same
> fashion as those added by its rivals.
Of course it's difficult to tell without any technical details, but my
educated guess would be that the non-free binary-only software they tried
to use was linked with -rpath, so it will only work if some library is in a
specific place. Which is of course, its own fault, and can be worked
around.
--
see shy jo
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