Linus Torvalds (torvalds@osdl.org) on 11/14/06 wrote:
---------------------------
> Rob Thorpe (rthorpe@realworldtech.com) on 11/14/06 wrote:
> >
> > What you're describing isn't much of a problem.
>
> I disagree. It becomes a huge logistical problem...
[snip]

> > The second is software that is old, but is still being
> > maintained. The vast majority of this software is written
> > in high level languages.
>
> That's another totally idiotic argument.
>
> People simply do not want to recompile. In many cases
> they even cannot recompile themselves, and they sure
> as hell don't want to pay for a software upgrade for all
> their critical software. If a new CPU needs a recompile,
> that new CPU is largely broken, as far as 99% of all users
> are concerned...

This is important not just for hardware; it is important for software as
well: One of the reasons I call my desktop operating system
Linux and not GNU/Linux is exactly this: the FSF is all
too willing to poo-poo the needs for compatibility and tell me just
re-compile.

And one of the reasons I do not like RedHat: there have been far too
many occasions when they have broken (expensive!) third party compilers
and other mission critical software in the past. Nor (given that I do
environmental supercomputing on lots of other platforms (not just
Linux/x86) is it easy even to build my environment under recent
RedHat; it winds up being two or three days' "dependency hell" chasing
down all the libraries involved and building everything in dependency
order.

Moreover, they are telling me they won't support OpenMotif at all
on future releases. And don't tell me that Motif is an old obsolete
tool-kit that I shouldn't be using; there simply isn't a viable
alternative across a mix of Linux/x86, Linux/ia64, Solaris, AIX, IRIX,
and HPUX.

For what it's worth...