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Linux Standard Base 2.0 released
prostoalex writes "Linux Standard Base 2.0 has been released by the Free Standards Group. The release will allow application developers to ensure their product works on multiple flavors of Linux. FSG keeps a list of compliant distributions on its Web site."
Someone got a mirror?
Jay | http://oldos.org
It should be stated that the gcc c++ abi for 3.4 series is incompatible with later versions.
Why do companies need to pay to be registered as compliant?
Why not use an open/free option?
This spec was released August 30th, over 2 weeks ago.
Who would have thunk it...
Has two products listed on the compliancy page. Caldera set to expire near the end of this week, and SCO Linux Server set to expire next month. I wonder if they'll try to get renewed.
All your standard-base are belong to us!
No Gentoo?
Which versions of the various distros will be compatible with LSB 2?
I am thinking somewhere around Fedora Core 6 or so. Anyone want to hazard a guess? This could get sticky with so many options and yet another standard to abide by...
BLING BLING. Meet the architecture that's changing everything.
I'm kind of disappointed looking at the list of compliant distributions - there aren't many on there, especially when you consider how many distributions there are out there.
With that in mind, how much can this "allow application developers to ensure their product works"?
Easy? Bah! I want spend 30 hours searching for HOWTO's! I want to type "apropos -k" until my fingers are numb! I want to scan scripts until I hallucinate ascii!
Bah! Bah I say!
If they're not on this list, I have a hard time taking this list serioulsy
All of the certified distros are commercial products. Where are the community distros in all of this?
Could it have something to do with the Fee Schedule? The fees don't seem that steep.
Can't read the article of course, but will this be the next big push for linux on the desktop? Or is it more for the server crowd?
Being able to install apps without going into a dependancy hell should boost the public's view of the user friendliness of linux.
Standards like the LSB are absolutely useless as long as the vast majority of distributions do not fully implement them. Even worse, is when the big distributions don't.
I tried to paste the list into this comment, but the lameness filter aborted it, so you guys get nothing.
Imagine all the penguins
It's easy if you try
With programmers on them
Computing standards in Sky
this seems like a step in the right direction for naysayers of linux who keep claiming that until linux has universal standards, it will never be very popular...
Interoperability is a great goal, but is anyone addressing patching/updating? Currently, it seems that these updates are handled as follows: download new packages, remove old packages, install new packages.
That seems fine for smaller bits of software but for a KDE bug fix or an OO.o update, downloads can go to the 100MBs or more. Fine on a DSL line, but dial-up users are still going to get hit hard.
I understand that OSS is better at fixing bugs and that's great -- but between Mandrake 10CE and now, it feels like I've downloaded another distro worth of updates. Is there something being done (maybe the whole binary diffs thing mentioned before) to decrease the size of update files?
I'm posting this as part of an LSB thread in the speculation that binary compatibility may one day lead to (smaller) patches that can be applied to LSB-compliant distros...so a KDE bug stays a KDE bug and not a MDK bug, SUSE bug, RH bug, Debian bug, etc.
The same to all the moderators who modded this funny.
The drafts had some gcc controversy. Which gcc did they end up choosing?
I've never heard of them before.
I mean what are they going to come up with next, a standard packaging format?
Jesus, they're just taking all the fun out linux.
I was under the impression something like the LSB doesn't change much. Does anyone have a summary of the new or changed items?
Im thinking this is a great improvement for linux in general...
If you have ever sat in on a dev channel on irc listening to people fight over where something should go on the filesystem, or where things should get installed to, then you will understand this is great milestone for developers.
Sometimes the majority just means all the morons are on the same side.
I wish Solaris was LSB compliant even though it's not Linux. Here's a good reason for standards:
There is a killall program on Linux, it kills all processes that have a processname that matches the argument you pass to it.
There is a killall program on Solaris, it doesn't take any arguments and will kill every process running.
List of compliant distros via Coral cache: HERE.
To err is human, but to forgive is beyond the scope of the Operating System...
On sale this week for only $3000.
well the worm authors will love that too.
:( - or perhaps more as we'll always be cleaning up the mess. ;)
oh, and that'll remove some of the diversity that makes it "hard" for non-admins. does that mean less money for us?
That reminds of another song John wrote and sang ...
Berkeley in the Sky with Diamonds
Debian is listed as a "Silver Member" on their group member page.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
A Beowulf Cluster of Linux standards? Don't we already have that?
They specced out C++ ABI and libraries this time.
This is a nice addition, since many developers prefer C++ in spite of considerable rifts between it and the Unix culture.
At the time LSB 1.3 was written, there was no open C++ ABI standard, and the issue was left dangling. There is such an ABI now, and g++ supports it fully. In fact, the entire LSB 2.0 C++ spec is written around libstdc++ from gcc 3.x.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
No, you're thinking clusterfuck.
When you get to hell -- tell 'em Itchy sent ya!
I presume that LSB is simply spec'ing existing practice, correct? Or have things changed since that posting? Is this really an issue, even, since a system might be able to support an "old" and "new" C++ ABI by having both the "old" and "new" libraries installed?
Also: if the C++ symbols will be stored as (name space + package + class + method) in that order, ELF is used, and there are many hash collisions, this might create a lot of overhead loading large C++ libraries. The reason: while linking, you'd have to compare a lot of text before matching, because so many symbol entries would have a common prefix that you'd have to keep matching over and over again. Am I reading this correctly?
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
Is the LSB responsible for /opt?
Good heavens .. thunking was what Windows programmers had to worry about when the Wintel world went from 16 to 32 bit operating systems. So, Windows programmers don't thunk anymore, and Linux programs never have to thunk at all.
Think global, act loco
I believe you meant "regnued".
Yes, there's a reason this was posted anonymously.
Well i use windows Xp pro and switching to linux wouldnt really be a money thing because i just download all of my software but being the nerd i am i've always wanted to switch over to linux its just i'm too lazy to go and test 6-7 versions of linux out.... I'm sure someone will jump at the opportunity to convert me :P. Well i mainly use my computer for browsing the web and chatting online.... i need webcam functionality in my chat and voice would be good too, i use trillian for aim, msn, yahoo and some times mIRC at the moment. I also use my computer for Photoshop work and i'm not worried about the switch to gimp i've used it before. Though i also use 3ds Max which worries me for switching over to linux otherwise i'm sure programming in C and such will be no problem..... I really like winamp for its library thing because i have around 6000 songs or more.... and i ussually download alot of anime so a nice Bit torrent client. I can give up games mostly thats not a big thing to me. I have only tried redhat for about 10minutes before it didnt seem all that bad i wasnt overly impressed. and my computer specs: AMD athlon 1.2Ghz 256mb of ram nothing really strange there.... i use a logitech quick cam pro 3000 and i'd really like use of my lexmark p3150 the book scanner is nice. Well ..... hopefully you can find me some setup that would work for me. thanks ^^
Certification of gentoo is almost certainly out of the picture, as you can't know from one system to annother which libraries are installed.
This might be an interesting use for slots though. Someone could build a series of ebuilds that require the specific library versions that the LSB specifies, and keeps them in slots (so they're not unmerged when they're upgraded). Then a Gentoo user who has emerged "LSB-Base" would have a decent chance to be able to run any LSB 2.0 requiring binary package.
LSB's fee schedule points to the TMLA for the list of countries that have to pay an extra $2,200USD. The TMLA is the Trademark License Agreement which was published in the U.K. by The Open Group in January of 1998. This document, which even has it's own fricken ISBN, is basically a contract that protects the UNIX trademark. Interestingly enough licensing a unix from someone like AT&T doesn't give you the right to use the UNIX trademark.
The Restricted countries, currently only include Taiwan and South Korea.
"For payment terms please contact The Free Standards Group"
Read the date on your link. Terpstra worked for Caldera in 2001, when they were a Linux company. As far as I can tell, he never worked for SCO, new or old.
Try Google. You may have heard of it. He now works for PrimaStasys, Inc.
I'm disgusted that you attempted to link someone who has done so much for Free software with SCO.
Last time I did an install when I selected LSB packages it told me I needed to use the 2.4 series kernel? This could just have been a glitch in the distro I was using, but considering I've never installed a piece of software that needed the LSB I immediated unselected it.
Whenever I hear the word standard regarding Linux I tend to think its a good thing, but I've started to feel pretty indifferent regarding the LSB. Is there any reason I shouldn't?
Quack, quack.
IIRC, your system doesn't have to use RPM natively to be compliant. It just has to deal with RPM v.3 packages. This can be done by either installing RPM (can be done), or using alien to change the package format.
I always get the shakes before a drop.
First off, you have to make sure your new standard SOLVES AN EXISTING PROBLEM and does so without creating new problems.
The LSB doesn't solve any problems for the Open Source developers (they're restricted to outdated libraries).
Nor does it solve any problems for the current users.
But it needs both of those camps to adopt it so that the commercial ISV's can write to it.
But that is not in the best interest of the various commercial distributions (Red Hat, SuSE, etc). Their best interest is to form partnerships with those same ISV's by offering those ISV's incentives to certify for their distribution (sharing the porting costs, the support costs, marketing costs, etc).
RHEL is LSB compliant I thought...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
And I'll do it again >8^}
Rather than specify apt or rpm or whatever, why not specify the FUNCTIONALITY that is required and let each package tool handle that however it deems best.
Focus on including the required information in the package itself. That makes cross-platform easier.
Guys don't give me this crap about companies feeding off the work of Open source. These companies have worked hard on their closed source applications and want to be able to port their software as binaries to Linux. This is a good thing.
To use that analogy, would a developer releasing software for windows be feeding off the hard work of MSFT? This standard will help create a symboitic relationship between commercial developers and the linux platform.
The average joe does not want access to the source, all they care about is compatibility and interoperability of software. Open standards are something the average joe might support but they could care less about the source.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
"Guys don't give me this crap about companies feeding off the work of Open source. These companies have worked hard on their closed source applications and want to be able to port their software as binaries to Linux. This is a good thing."
I'm not going to argue whether those ISV's are "feeding off" of anyone or not. That's not the point.
If everyone adopted the LSB tomorrow, it would be a good thing for those ISV's.
But what is the incentive for anyone who is NOT one of those ISV's to adopt it?
"This standard will help create a symboitic relationship between commercial developers and the linux platform."
Yes, the ISV's will benefit. But what about the other Open Source developers? What's in it for them?
What about the current users? what's in it for them?
What about Red Hat? Why would this be better than forming their own partnerships with those same ISV's?
"The average joe does not want access to the source, all they care about is compatibility and interoperability of software."
That may be so. But what is the incentive for whatever distribution Joe is running to conform to the LSB? Particularly when it is quickly outdated?
Sorry, I seriously doubt that, as any software written for Intel will probably work for AMD as well. Also, don't agree that all commercial software is evil, nor that binaries are evil.
Finally the Linux guys agreed that there SHOULD be a standard (even if it's not implemented yet).
.os hell mentioned earlier. (No more recompiling! Halleluyah!!)
Seriously, saying Linux is 1000 times better than Microsoft is kinda being hypocritical when they make MS's same mistake: Despising standards in favor of proprietary implementations. (NO, i DON'T mean open vs closed source. I mean standard vs proprietary).
Anyway let's see if in a couple of months, this resolution helps programmers deploy Linux binaries that run on _ALL_ compliant Linux distros, ending to the
For political reasons, the LSB standardised on RPM. Most (all?) of the community have moved onto something better than RPM and so do not comply in that regard.
Good to see progress on this project. Linux is in need of a strong UNIX like standard that Distro designers can refer to and software engineers can trust when designing production quality software.
Forgive me if this joke has been posted a 1000 times before... ;-)
Firstly the LSB covers several platforms nowdays, secondly its goal is to create common packages. That means getting the same package running on Red Hat and SuSE regardless of whether its proprietary or free software.
Standards, there are so many to choose from...
... yeah! We ran the tests and they all passed! Cert us!"
A standard doesn't mean squat unless there's a driving reason to support and comply with it. That's not to say that LSB couldn't become that, but that IS the hurdle it must overcome in order to fulfill its true function.
The reason you have to pay to get certified is simple:
"Uh
I don't know if LSB is doing the cert testing themselves or using a RedHat approach (which is decent, but academically flawed). If they aren't, results aren't truly verifiable and they're just overcharging people for some small amount of administration work. If they are, more power to them. That means they're serious about this and it could be the One True Standard for all.
There was a story about this at Linux Weekly News.
-jim
to my customers.
I'm not interested at all in an OS. I want to run my mail & web servers on SOMETHING. I'd rather run it on linux because it runs faster on Linux than it does on the same box with Windows.
The downside right now, is that I have a serious hassle picking a disti, keeping it up to date (or allowing not a single port to touch the net) and worrying about compatibility.
I'm going to check out the list of distributors right now. I'm way way more likely to pick a conforming distribution.
I'd even be willing to pay the person who put it together for me for their effort. Jokes about LSD aside, I'd pay my fifty bucks for a pure standard disti with a good installer and a good automatic update process to keep it running right. I'd pay it in a heart beat.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
"The benifit for the home user is that he has a larger selection of software he might want to use available."
No he does not. That won't happen until AFTER the ISV's write the software.
What is his incentive TODAY?
"The benifit for the open source developer is MORE people see his work and he gets more kudo's and he has an easier time getting his work to work without tracking down all the different ways it can break on the various distro's and having to fix THAT rather than write what he wants."
That sound more like the closed source ISV's. They are the ones looking at getting their software to work with fewer changes.
And so forth.
What is the incentive for Joe or a developer or a distribution to support the LSB today? Without the additional software available yet?
You just choose the one you like & run with it ;-)
My pics.
If you're a software developer, the last thing you want to deal with is bug reports from people who didn't patch or build the code properly or have tried to deploy it on something like Debian Unstable or a similarly bleeding edge system. If you can't isolate your own code as the variant in a system, there's no hope of fixing some bugs. Good luck when everyone builds with different optimizations (compiler bugs, yay!), feature sets (hey, you didn't even compile in support for X, no wonder the GUI's not there) and so on. Selective optimization is good enough, or do you compulsively overclock as well?
Does LSB 2.0 (or 1.x for that matter) defines UTF-8 support for all locales? I tried scanning thru LSB 1.x doc but it doesn't seem to be defined anywhere. Either that or I missed it.
I was under the impression that Patrick had sorted all this out or did I mishear?
So, in sum, they are evil greedy bastards? ;-)
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"Gee I dunno then, I guess there no point in doing somthing if it don't benifit me TODAY after going to a job is so stupid if I have wait till later for my paycheck."
No, you have a job today because if you did NOT then you would be broke later. You need the job to make the money to pay for food/shelter/clothing/debts.
But that doesn't apply to Linux and the LSB.
Today, Linux works. Tomorrow, Linux will work. Next month, Linux will work. Next year, Linux will work.
So what is the incentive TODAY for someone to change a WORKING SYSTEM to make it easier for the ISV's to port their software to it?
Personally, I don't believe the ISV's will do so. If they haven't ported to Red Hat yet, what's stopping them? That's the largest corporate distribution.
Except that this really has nothing to do with software.
!
Software == source.
Er, yes. Software is generally created from source. Not having source available doesn't make something not software. In fact, having source available doesn't make it Open Source either (eg, qmail, pine, Windows 2003).
This is not about binary only stuff. Read the article. It's clear you haven't.
I asked what motivation you would provide to people to get them to use the LSB TODAY.
You went on about how you work today so you can get paid later.
I pointed out that Linux works today and the Linux will work next month and so on.
Now you're off about the desktop. This is about the LSB.
"Here's another way of looking at it, why do you have a pci bus in your computer instead of a gatway or dell or hp or whatever bus?"
So, it's like an analogy or something?
Fuck your analogies. Just tell me what incentive there is for someone to use the LSB TODAY.
"The difference is the home desktop is a very different environment vs the corporate it shop."
I don't give a fuck. Again, just tell me what incentive there is for someone to use the LSB TODAY.
"If I were a creating for profit home software I would not be justify a linux version because my effective market is too small."
I am remaining in the state of not-giving-a-fuck'edness. Just tell me what incentive there is for someone to use the LSB TODAY.
"Having a standard (as long as it's a useable one it doesn't have to be perfect) allows distro's to effectively group thier market shares in the eye's of software creators."
Distributions market their distribution to end-users.
Not to ISV's.
Distributions can take their marketshare numbers to ISV's and show a market for the ISV's software if the ISV's will port to that distribution. To add incentive to that, the distribution will usually help with support or porting or a marketing campaign. This is what Red Hat has done.
So, in conclusion, there is NO incentive for ANYONE who is not currently emotionally invested in the LSB to adopt it.
They will gain the same benefit in the future if other people adopt it.
But, because there isn't any incentive, no one will and the promised commercial ISV software will never materialize because no one is using the LSB and the LSB will spend another 6 years trying to get to version 3.0.