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

The question is...

[Tom7]

Who do all the Linux Standards Base belong to?

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.