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blacktulip 不完全是了(同样命令行都能搞定的 OS X 的桌面就做得不错)
和这个问题相关的,Linus 有个讲 ABI 兼容性的帖子,里面的观点就挺有意思的(而且在我看来也挺有道理的),里面说到内核的情形是:“One of the core kernel rules has always been that we never ever break any external interfaces. That rule has been there since day one, although it's gotten much more explicit only in the last few years. The fact that we break internal interfaces that are not visible to userland is totally irrelevant, and a total red herring.” 而桌面项目里面似乎没有有能做到这点的。
竞争对手们,微软是以不丢弃旧接口、尽各种力量保持向后兼容著称的;苹果更激进些,他们定期丢弃旧接口,然而即便如此,也一般会维持向后至少两三版本兼容(开发者社区较小并且也愿意跟进苹果,也使这基本不是问题)。