[igrekel]

I don't really like this analogy because you can more easily shared piece of useful software across Linux distributions than you can across lisp implementations.

True that the differences are limited to things outside the specs, but somehow my applications almost always stepped in these parts.

[Novash]

It is not a matter of software, but a matter of usability. Think of a Windows user only perspective. When installing a distro, you are confronted with the choice between X, KDE, Gnome, Compix, or whatever else Windows Manager is out there now, just to SHOW the Desktop. You haven't even started to use the OS and you must already make decisions about what to Window Manager to use. Most people don't even know what a Window Manager is. Now Google about them and all you will find are people that love their choice and diss all others and all of them seem wonderful in their eyes.

[igrekel]

I disagree, you can know quite a bit of lisp and still be caught.

There usually not a lot of development time to rework an application from one distro to the next. Also very rarely you'll need a package that is only available on another distribution. It is the case with CL implementations tough.