Firefox 2 on Dapper

[Donn]

> Did you try to install FF 2 in the /usr branch?
I ran it from ~/bin/firefox/ would that make it unstable for some reason?

> Another factor is dependencies.  When a Linux app needs a
> particular lib version, it makes it known and requires you install it.
> Windows apps just include another version of the DLL in the install.
Okay this is getting down to it. So a newer distro would have a *totally* new 
library (libBlah) that an earlier version would not have and all new software 
is thus compiled to talk to libBlah. 
Right, I can see that... but ... why do the API's have to change so often? Why 
can't libBlah support the old API's too? I don't code C, so these things are 
a little foreign, but I picture a set of functions and/or classes that can be 
used by an app, why can't libBlah keep those same names and parameters etc, 
just add newer ones on for the newer API? 

> This 
> leaves multiple and conflicting versions of particular DLLs on your system,
> leading to instability and unpredictability. Makes windows easier to use (n
> terms of installs), but much more unstable.
I am not flaming here -- I really have not found Windows from 2000 onwards to 
be unstable. It just plain works. I hate it to pieces, don't get me wrong, 
but I won't ascribe problems to it that I have never experienced.

What would be so wrong about having multiple versions of libBlah on a system?
/d