[OT] really?

[Eric Dunbar]

On 6/12/05, Jima <jima at beer.tclug.org> wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Jun 2005, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
> > On Sun, Jun 12, 2005 at 09:13:53AM -0400, Eric Dunbar wrote:
> > > 2. "Fat binary" tools come on the market that will compile an app for
> > > i86 and generate a fat binary that will run under both Windows and OS
> > > X (and, when that happens, Linux may come along for the ride so that
> > > would be good for Linux).
> >
> > Probably not Linux. MacOS is built on a BSD kernel which is almost
> > linux compatible but won't run the same binaries, plus a windowing
> > system (Aqua) that does not run on linux and is NOT open source.
> >
> > Linux binaries could easily be accomdated with a translation layer that
> > would translate Linux calls to BSD calls, such a layer exisits for
> > (under linux) for x86 Solaris directly and the binary standard of x86 UNIX.
> 
>  Err, actually, FreeBSD (at least) already has such a translation layer.
> I used it to "run" Linux in a chroot environment on a FreeBSD box in 2001
> or so.  Nice idea, but the developers beat you to it. :)

I think the future for Mac OS X apps is in fat binaries.
Emulation/translation layers are good for those "must have" apps but
commercial developers who have a name to preserve will not want to
rely on something as weak as WINE. I guess time will tell what the
solution will be, but I think by 2007 we may see apps that "just run"
on Windows and Mac OS X, all in the same binary.

Same thing with Linux and Mac OS X apps. There's little difference
between Mac OS X and Linux on the lower levels so all you have to do
is have a "fat binary" for the GUI functions. Again, X11 integration
with OS X is just too weak for pros to stake their name on so I think
they'd rather go the dual binary route.

Time will tell. Apps have a long and successful history of "fat
binaries" on Mac OS so it's not like it's an untested development
method.

Eric.