Bill Wohler wrote: > And yet, such an optimistic outcome is not a sure thing. Minor > examples of Linux forks already exist. When Tom Stoddard, database > administrator at BFGoodrich's Avionics Division, loaded backup > software on company servers in Grand Rapids, Mich., he found an > unexpected anomaly. The software operated right off the bat on > servers using Caldera, Red Hat and Mandrake installations of > Linux. But when he tried to get it to work with a fourth version, > one called Debian, the desktop backup software from Legato Systems > failed. > > The technical diagnosis: "Debian must have some libraries in a > different location than the others," he said, meaning that some > functions added by Debian to Linux cannot be retrieved in the same > fashion as those added by its rivals.
Of course it's difficult to tell without any technical details, but my educated guess would be that the non-free binary-only software they tried to use was linked with -rpath, so it will only work if some library is in a specific place. Which is of course, its own fault, and can be worked around. -- see shy jo
