From: jjf AT dsbc DOT icl DOT co DOT uk (J.J.Farrell) Subject: Re: Advice! 6 Apr 1997 10:07:33 -0700 Sender: daemon AT cygnus DOT com Approved: cygnus DOT gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Distribution: cygnus Message-ID: <199704061559.26848.0.cygnus.gnu-win32@dsbc.icl.co.uk> Original-To: slumos AT nevada DOT edu (STEVE LUMOS) Original-Cc: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com In-Reply-To: <199704060029.QAA29933@pioneer.nevada.edu> from "STEVE LUMOS" at Apr 5, 97 04:29:14 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Original-Sender: owner-gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com > From: STEVE LUMOS > > >Aside from my obvious bias, working for Microsoft, there is no way you > >could offer such an OS. Heck, nobody can make an OS that's 100% > >compatible with the last version of the same OS. > > Because Microsoft can't do it doesn't mean that nobody can. In fact, > many others have done it. I'd like to know who and when! I've been developing operating systems for more years than I care to remember, and I know of no case of 100% compatibility between versions (unless a version change is something entirely trivial), either in the ones I've worked on or anyone else's. It is quite possible, though difficult, to ensure that nothing will change for those applications which stick absolutely to published APIs and have no dependency on anything which is not explicitly stated as part of the API, but (1) I don't believe any such applications exist in the real world; and (2) that's not what's being discussed anyway. Regards, jjf - For help on using this list, send a message to "gnu-win32-request AT cygnus DOT com" with one line of text: "help".