Re: [linuxiran] My growing interest in Apple

[Aryan Ameri]

On Monday 21 April 2003 13:31, Arash Bijanzadeh wrote:
> On Monday 21 April 2003 13:43, Aryan Ameri wrote:
> > On Monday 21 April 2003 11:08, Arash Bijanzadeh wrote:
here can we get this Apple's gcc?
> >
> > It only runs on Mac OS X. Ofcourse as I said, source is available,
> > but one should port it to Linux, to be able to run it on Linux.
> > Something which hasn't been done yet.
>
> Saying gcc means that it is the same of GNU patched by Apple, so it
> should compile on Linux too, isn't it?!

Well, no Arash.

Though Apple's GCC is a Patched GNU GCC, it has some functiones in it, 
which call libraries and uses frameworks that are Mac specific, and are 
not available in GNU/Linux. Hence it won't compile on anything other 
than Apple Mac OS X and Apple Darwin (The open Source foundation for 
Mac OS X). 

Apple actually works like this: they get the code, enhance it using 
their own frameworks, and add their own libraries to it, and then 
release it. The result is a Mac specific product which won't compile on 
a system, without Macintosh's libraries (And yes, their libraries are 
also open source).

That's the same with khtml, for example you can get Apple's source from 
http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/webcore/index.html
Though this code is based on khtml, it won't compile on anything other 
than Mac OSX. Simply because it need Mac's libraries.

This isn't Mac specific ofcourse, that's the story with almost all 
traditinal Unixes. Although, Open/Free/Net BSD, HP-UX, AIX, Irix, 
Solaris, True 64 Unix, SCO Unix, Unixware, Xeinix, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X 
and ... are all Unix, but they all have incompatible libraries, and 
they all have their own specific toolkits. Which means when you develop 
a program for one, there is no gurantee that it will run on any other 
one. 

Welcome to the incompatible and crazy world of Unix !!!

Cheers
-- 
/* Mom, I'm not viewing porn late at night; really, 
I'm just at slashdot, reading myself blind */

Aryan Ameri