Platform fragmentation

Linux

Linux uses several different package formats; many libraries have up to a dozen or more configuration settings selected during assembly, and the core has hundreds, to which many vendors also add their own patches ; At the same time, many versions of the kernel and several generations of libraries are used on dozens of different hardware platforms.

To limit fragmentation in their niches, distribution providers restrict (by the package manager tools) the ability of users to install the supplied packages in an abnormal configuration. FSF deliberately counteracts fragmentation by the Autotools package, among other things leveling differences in the functionality of different versions of system libraries. The POSIX standard supported by The Open Group also serves the purpose of giving guarantees to developers. Independent groups have been created to coordinate several other non-POSIX APIs, such as freedesktop.org for the graphics APIs.

Sun Java ME

Fragmentation of Java ME was on such articles:

• Screen Size: 96 × 65 to 240 × 320.
• Font sizes
• Button codes (with the exception of the dialer buttons - they are assigned ASCII codes of characters 0 ... 9, "*" and "#").
• The presence / absence of a pen.
• Sound API ( MMAPI or native).
• Other errors and shortcomings: low memory, features of the cache of images and sounds, API errors.

Therefore, developers of mobile games had to release many (thirty or more) versions of the same game for different devices. Almost all games have their own digital fonts for displaying the score (and often full fonts for all the inscriptions in the game).

Google Android

Texture compression for 3D graphics in Android is not standardized and varies from device to device ^[2] . But even without this, Android has problems: different screen sizes and OS versions. In 2013, with the current version 4.2, there were smartphones with version 2.1 ^[1] . In 2010, Ballmer and Jobs accused Android of fragmentation, Google denied it, but the facts spoke for themselves: Netflix had to make its own version of the program for almost every Android device, while on iOS and Windows Phone they cost one version ^[3] .

Beautiful visualization of fragmentation in 2012 was made by specialists from OpenSignal ^{[1] [4]} . They got 3997 different combinations of device model and Android version. Among the unusual devices are Lemon P1 , an Indian dual-SIM smartphone, and Concorde Tab , a Hungarian 10-inch tablet.

In 2012, fragmentation forced Google to add a vague phrase to the Android Development Kit user agreement: ^[5]

Also in an interview in 2013, Google’s chairman of the board of directors Eric Schmidt answered the question about fragmentation that he no longer sees this as a problem ^[6] .

Sometimes Android fragmentation is considered a virtue: see how widely the OS is used, unlike a dozen Apple devices ^[1] .