> Had they chosen Linux then that ATM would still be sitting there with just-an-outdated version of some embedded Linux distro.
That's wrong, they would have been in a position to update / maintain themselves their own distro or dedicate that to a third party company that has the knowhow to do so. This for more than 20 years without problems. Because they would DO have the code for it if they want it.
With proprietary solutions in the embedded system world, this is impossible to do. If your providers refuses to support your OS anymore, you're fucked and that's it. And if he wants to increase the cost of your support maintenance program per 10x because it's legacy, you're fucked too, just in an other way.
> Linux because Linux does not have a stable applications ABI between major releases: the software would need to be recompiled.
I disagre and for two reasons:
- first, if it's your software stack recompiling should not be a problem
- second, it is not true. Kernel ABI is stable (mostly). And running statically compiled binary between major kernel releases never have been a problem.
> infrastructure operators are not going to be happy having to do patch-tuesday and recompiling their software on a regular basis for hardware they'd really prefer to leave alone and stable.
Do they ?
Even on ATM, client software evolves and is updated. In their case, they just do it with the pain of a legacy system without being able to touch to the platform itself because they have no control on it.
That's wrong, they would have been in a position to update / maintain themselves their own distro or dedicate that to a third party company that has the knowhow to do so. This for more than 20 years without problems. Because they would DO have the code for it if they want it.
With proprietary solutions in the embedded system world, this is impossible to do. If your providers refuses to support your OS anymore, you're fucked and that's it. And if he wants to increase the cost of your support maintenance program per 10x because it's legacy, you're fucked too, just in an other way.
> Linux because Linux does not have a stable applications ABI between major releases: the software would need to be recompiled.
I disagre and for two reasons:
- first, if it's your software stack recompiling should not be a problem
- second, it is not true. Kernel ABI is stable (mostly). And running statically compiled binary between major kernel releases never have been a problem.
> infrastructure operators are not going to be happy having to do patch-tuesday and recompiling their software on a regular basis for hardware they'd really prefer to leave alone and stable.
Do they ? Even on ATM, client software evolves and is updated. In their case, they just do it with the pain of a legacy system without being able to touch to the platform itself because they have no control on it.