[ydl-gen] truecrypt - anywhere?

[Atro Tossavainen]

> http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads/
> 
> Pop open the listing for "Linux distribution and hardware platforms"
> you'll notice that the only releases available are for Intel and AMD
> based processors. The Cell is part of the PowerPC family of processors
> and not included in their list.

So?  Big deal.  Bwaaaaaaaa.

> So the bottom line is that although Truecrypt announces itself as open
> source it is not available currently, judging by the above listing, for
> the Cell and related systems.  Truecrypt is one of a group of vendors
> which have chosen to not develop for PowerPC systems.

OPEN SOURCE MEANS GIVING AWAY THE SOURCE CODE, DOESN'T IT.

BINARIES FOR ANY PARTICULAR PLATFORM ARE NOT PART OF THAT DEAL.

SOME AUTHORS OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE _ALSO_ DECIDE TO MAKE AVAILABLE
COMPILED BINARIES OF THEIR PACKAGES FOR SOME PLATFORMS IN ORDER TO
MAKE LIFE EASIER FOR SOME USERS, BUT IN GENERAL, YOU SHOULD _EXPECT_
TO HAVE TO COMPILE YOUR OWN.

I'm almost sorry for shouting, but not quite.

The big deal is whether a particular software package compiles on any
particular operating system with any particular compilers, not whether
the author has access to all the hardware and compilers in the world
and decides to produce ready-made binaries for this, that and the
other.

Unfortunately, sometimes assumptions are made by software authors that
result in portability problems, such as "the word length of a computer
is 32 bits", or "all computers are little endian", or "everybody uses
the GNU GCC compiler collection", or "everybody uses Linux", or...

The real deal is writing software with as few portability issues as
possible.

-- 
Atro Tossavainen (Mr.)               / The Institute of Biotechnology at
Systems Analyst, Techno-Amish &     / the University of Helsinki, Finland,
+358-9-19158939  UNIX Dinosaur     / employs me, but my opinions are my own.
< URL : http : / / www . helsinki . fi / %7E atossava / > NO FILE ATTACHMENTS