Todd Vierling tv@pobox.com writes:
I definitely don't want to reproduce apt-to-change parts of the OS in an application just because it *might* be built on an earlier version of that OS. If an app is built on the earlier OS version, the user should expect to be missing features. Unix users accept this as a fact of life.
But like it or not, this is changing. Maybe not for NetBSD yet, but there are many people at least on Linux who are not primarily Unix users, and who want things to work without having to mess with configure or upgrading system headers. This is doubly true for Wine, since "real" Unix users don't need Windows apps, our primary audience is Windows users who are used to downloading binaries that "just work". And so we have a responsibility to make sure that it's the case for them, even if it means departing from the One True Unix Way.