Updates from the Free Standards Group

Daniel Quinlan writes "Today, the Free Standards Group released version 1.2 of the Linux Development Platform Specification and let loose with the public review of FHS 2.2-beta that will be used in the Linux Standard Base (and is already being used by distributions). Also of note, the Linux Standard Base has a new chairman, George Kraft IV, and the LSB specification is nearing completion. Really."

Comments

Re:This is only a stopgap standard for the lazy

[Arandir]

If you use glibc, linux and Xfree86 extensions in your program, then it will *only* run on Linux.

Take a look at the FreeBSD ports and start counting how many applications *require* glibc installed just to compile the software. Obviously, there are scads of developers that are indeed using non-portable extensions.

March 12, 2000 or 2001?

[LordNimon]

Something is wrong here. http://www.freestandards.org/ldps/ says 1.1 was released March 12, 2001 (yesterday). But if you read that announcement, you'll see the headline says March 12, 2000. Not only that, but the announcement text makes references to old distributions, e.g. Red Hat 6.2.

Also, I'm confused as to which distributions actually uses 1.1.
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Even if this happens, what can it change?

[woody_jay]

Even if we have an orginization that is giving Linux Standards, the fact that Linux is Open Source means no one has to listen. For example, let's say the Linux Standard's Orginization says RPM is the standard format that will be used for installation of software. Who has to listen? It's open source, if I want to tar and gzip my files to get them out there and force you to compile them yourself, then there is not one thing you can do about it.

The only way this will work is if all vendors come together on this and make it happen. Why would they want to do that? There are so many flaovors out there, if we start to standardize, the smaller "flavors" will be eventually out of business and we are back to capitalism at it's finest.

The question is...

[Tom7]

Who do all the Linux Standards Base belong to?

thoughts

[OdinHuntr]

- This is version 1.1, not 1.2

- Why XFree86 3.3.x? 4.0 has proven stable and is faster.

- Why on Earth is there no mention of Perl? Perl is the glue that holds many, many useful applications together; not including it in a standard makes no sense.


--

runlevels are beyond the scope of FHS

[slothbait]

The FHS (Filesystem Hierarchy Standard) lays out the basic organization of a compliant filesystem. The differences between flavors of init scripts run deeper than simply where the scripts are located within the filesystem. Thus, runlevels are beyond the scope of the FHS.

While inappropriate for the FHS, runlevels may well be treated in the more comprehensive LSB. I am unaware if this is on the agenda of the LSB, but the current discrepancy between systems is certainly an annoyance. However, standardization of start up scripts may prove difficult as it involves treading through a few holy wars. Some of the old SysV / BSD schism carries on in the Linux camps, and this partially explains the different runlevel schemes in use today.

Personally, I think rc scripts *should* be homogenized, and the LSB may be the appropriate body to push this through. I don't think the current divide is buying us much other than headaches. However, presently the LSB seems more concerned with binary compatibility at the application level: glibc versioning, ABI standardization, etc. This is a rather important topic as third party companies begin porting to "Linux", which they quickly find is segmented into ~5 pretty much compatible systems. This isn't such a big deal if you have source code, but can be a big hair mess for binary-only applications. Of course, some would argue that they don't *want* binary only applications on their system, but I'll leave that debate to the Slashdot masses...

--Lenny

If they only had the balls..

[slick_rick]

This could really be a good thing. They could fix many of the "problems" that prevent Linux from dominating the desktop.

Setting a standard set of APIs for stuff like the clipboard, file associations, desktop integration, etc. The Windoze way to handle clipboard stuff is to first "register" a type for the data you are placing there. Most apps use a canned type and therefore you can cut and paste between almost any windows program. Why is it bad for things to work? Couldn't we do the same thing in X with a XML spec of some sort?

And how about standardizing the interface a bit. I can't tell you how hard it is to explain to my wife that in KMail you use CTRL+C to copy, but then to paste it in Netscape you push the middle mouse button, and hope...

Not to mention the 15 different file open dialogs I see every day. Some of them are really rotten too...

I love Linux, don't get me wrong. However, I believe that standardizing some of the more obvious stuff for the GUI crowd would benefit us all immensely.