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Re: Spinoff: Using Linux for work? was RE: Why Tech-Writers ShouldKnow About Open Source Technologies
Subject:Re: Spinoff: Using Linux for work? was RE: Why Tech-Writers ShouldKnow About Open Source Technologies From:David Neeley <dbneeley -at- gmail -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Sun, 18 Sep 2005 19:33:00 -0500
Jyoti,
Most UNIX software is relatively trivial to port to Linux; often, it
is mostly a matter of recompiling it. Since Linux is POSIX compliant,
and since it works very similarly to UNIX, the porting difficulty is
much less than between more dissimilar systems--UNIX to or from
Windows, for example.
FYI, the original name by Bell Labs was all caps for UNIX (for no good
reason known to anyone); Linux, like most others, is not properly
rendered in all-caps.
As for Linux software being "not usually free"--that is largely a
misimpression. The bulk of Linux software today is free, although the
number of commercial companies porting to it grows with each passing
month.
Oracle does not test its products on all variations (called
"distributions") of Linux; like most others, it tests and supports a
few of the primary ones and makes no major efforts to support the many
others. However, there is a great deal of work going on to make Linux
much more consistent from distribution to distribution.
I thought it was interesting that Microsoft is soon to release a
"cluster edition" of its Windows server software--that will have an
essential component in the form of a free and open source library.
Even Microsoft seems to be unable to avoid FOSS software these days,
especially in scientific computing.
David
On 9/18/05, jguptactoc -at- yahoo -dot- com <jguptactoc -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
>
> Hello.
>
> Linux is an opensource operating system. Software companies, such as
> Oracle, write software that can run on Linux, but that software is not
> usually free. For instance, Oracle may have originally made its databases
> for use on UNIX, not LINUX. To get its software to run on LINUX, Oracle
> will "port" the computer code that makes up its software from UNIX to
> LINUX. The "porting" process is almost always costly and time consuming.
> Not only does the company have to "port" the code, it also has to add
> LINUX to its software testing procedures. Oracle has to test its software
> on all the versions of all the operating systems it chooses to support.
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