How does porting between Linux and Windows work?

Posted by Matt on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Matt
Published on 2010-04-18T22:31:24Z Indexed on 2010/04/18 22:33 UTC
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linux

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Windows

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porting

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software

If a particular piece of software is made to be run on one platform and the programmer/company/whatever wants to port it to the other, what exactly is done? I mean, do they just rewrite linux or windows-specific references to the equivalent in the other? Or is an entire rewrite necessary?

Just trying to understand what makes it so cost-prohibitive that so many major vendors don't port their software to Linux (specifically thinking about Adobe)

Thanks

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