[csw-users] Why support Solaris 8 onwards?

[Paul Gress]

James Lee wrote:
> On 16/09/07, 15:53:19, Paul Gress <pgress at optonline.net> wrote regarding 
> Re: [csw-users] Why support Solaris 8 onwards?:
>
>   
>> So the way I understand this from viewing all the responses back so far,
>> people who use Solaris 8 are only using it with servers, and people
>> requesting Solaris 10 compiles use Solaris as a Workstation and desktop
>> productivity.
>>     
>
> Nope.  I'm writing this on a Solaris 8 desktop.
>
>
>
>   
Well I guess your OS won't bloat because you need all the extra 
libraries Solaris 10 doesn't need.  What are you using for a Web 
browser, Mosaic?  For a text editor, vi?  Well I've been using Unix now 
for 15+ years, started with Interactive Unix from Kodak, and since then 
have always upgraded, even to Solaris 2.1 from Interactive Unix when Sun 
bought them.  From there I have purchased various Sparc workstations and 
current PC's all utilizing Solaris 10.  Yes I think keeping up to date 
with the OS is important, as do a lot of others.  There wouldn't be a 
lot of users with Solaris Express if it wasn't important to them.  I was 
very fluent with vi in the past.  Now, with computer horsepower up, to 
me GUI is the way.  But when I add what's missing in Solaris 10 or want 
the latest version, I get a whole set of redundant libraries that bloats 
my computer hard drive.  Yes I believe it's a problem that needs to be 
fixed.  Blastwave has 3 platforms to install to, but it seems only 
Solaris 8 is used.  Maybe Blastwave shouldn't drop Solaris 8, but they 
should make an effort to reduce the redundant libraries in Solaris 10 by 
making different install scripts for Solaris 10, maybe something like 
looking for Firefox install from the Bejing team of Sun, or even 
existing libraries of GTK and GTK2.  Why is this so difficult, and why 
so much resistance to progress?

Paul