On 7/26/2011 10:18 AM, Lamar Owen wrote:
Keep in mind that the Linux kernel itself makes no concessions to backwards compatibility and demands that all related modules be recompiled to match changes.
One of my paragraphs originally included a fairly lengthy passage on kernel ABI compatibility, but I trimmed it out, and I 'genericized' to more than just the one project, and put in parentheses the statement 'partly to prevent closed-source programs from continuing to work' as a more generic thing, more than just binary kernel modules.
It's most assuredly not just the kernel.
Yes, its only a slight over-generalization to say that free projects have no obligation to existing customers and they usually prefer 'new and different' development to boring backward compatible support work.
Even though RHEL isn't a free project, there's only so much they can do to reconcile the wild changes in the code they include.