OpenWindows Binary Compatibility

Binary Compatibility in the OpenWindows environment varies depending on the protocol or toolkit used. The following sections are standard guidelines for binary compatible OpenWindows applications, and describe the level of binary compatibility available for the X11 protocols and the various toolkits.

OpenWindows Version 2.0 (V2) and OpenWindows Version 3.0 (V3) were available with the SunOS 4.x release. Solaris 2.x contains OpenWindows V3.3 (V3.3) as the default window system. In general, OpenWindows V2 applications that ran on OpenWindows V3 should also run on OpenWindows V3.3. All limitations and problems noted in the following sections apply to OpenWindows V2 applications that are running on OpenWindows V3.3.

Linking OpenWindows Applications

When an application links libraries, all libraries must be dynamically linked.

For example, if libxview is dynamically linked but libolgx is statically linked against OpenWindows V2 libraries, this application will not run on V3. The user will see ld.so error messages similar to:

ld.so: call to undefined procedure _olgx_xxx from 0xf77906ec

If all libraries except libc are dynamically linked against OpenWindows V2, error messages such as the following will be seen:

ld.so: call to undefined procedure _strdup from 0xf778ea30

If an application used and modified OpenWindows V2 XView source and dynamically linked the libraries when the application was built, the application will not run with V3 XView. The modified XView source must be removed.

X11

In OpenWindows V3, the X11 protocol and XLib (the client library) were maintained with 100% backwards compatibility with OpenWindows V2. Both releases support Revision 4 of the X11 MIT protocol. The OpenWindows V3.3 release does contain a large number of bug fixes, however, that make it more protocol reliant than OpenWindows V2 was. If an application relies on an incompatibility with the protocol, it may no longer work.

Unsupported Methods

NeWS

The NeWS protocol is not supported in OpenWindows V3.3.

SunView

The Sunview protocol is not supported in OpenWindows V3.3.

Pixrects

Pixrects are not supported in OpenWindows V3.3.