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."

Comments

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do companies need to pay to be registered as compliant?

Why not use an open/free option?

Re:Why?

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Let me repeat the operative words here: commercial software, binary only, Intel.

Get off your high horse already. There are plenty of good reasons to support the idea of a "one binary runs on any distribution" architecture. There are a lot of potential users out there who would be more willing to give Linux a try if they could do Next-Next-Next-Finish installs. Yes, LSB makes life easier for commercial software, but it makes life easier for everyone else too.

You won't win any converts to the open source philosophy by deliberately keeping the software more difficult to install. That former Windows user who started Linux life with binary LSB packages might eventually grow into a contributing community member, but if you never give him the opportunity to start with something easy, he might never get there. And if he doesn't -- so what? You can't expect everyone to be a super-elite power user.

So...

[Power Everywhere]

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...

Compliant Distributions

[adam mcmaster]

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"?

slackware and debian

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're not on this list, I have a hard time taking this list serioulsy

Re:slackware and debian

[Anonymous Coward]

To lots of people, Slackware and Debian are like dual Gold Standards of Linux distributions.

If you have a hard time taking them seriously, then I wouldn't be surprised if your peers have a hard time taking you seriously.

Where's the community?

[nadamsieee]

FSG keeps a list of compliant distributions on its Web site.

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.

Re:Where's the community?

[iabervon]

Ideally, they'd have a test suite for systems available, and a distribution could claim to be compliant if it passed. Or, better, end users who are concerned could run the test suite themselves to find out.

For that matter, install scripts could include the test suite and check before installing whether your system seems plausible, with sufficient information to complain to your distro if it's not right.

Re:Where's the community?

[Otter]

Where are the community distros in all of this?

Realistically -- what for? Is there a single user not running Gentoo because it isn't LSB-approved? The sort of environment that demands or even cares about LSB compliance has no interest in "community distros" at all. By definition, almost.

Next big push?

[photonagon]

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.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Compliant Distros

[bluewee]

What I have found with gentoo, is that most of the programs that you emerge, will be in a different place than if you were just to untar, and make the package your self.

This makes it quite hard to follow a general howto for a general *nix nox, while using emerge to get the packages.

Free Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

On sale this week for only $3000.

Re:This is nonsense

[nadamsieee]

Actually, RPM is the standard packaging format for LSB. Thank God for gentoo...

Re:standards are good

[Brandybuck]

Let's turn your argument around, and ask why "killall" under Linux doesn't kill every process running. After all, that's what the command implies.

quote

[dtfinch]

"For payment terms please contact The Free Standards Group"

Re:This is nonsense

[mpcooke3]

They need a format that only contains meta information about files/services rather than actual commands to execute (pre/post install sections in rpm).

Atleast I think that's what they need, they sure as hell need to sort something out that is better than RPM...

It can be done ... but it takes work.

[khasim]

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).

Finally, about time.

[aristotle-dude]

I've been advocating this for some time. If linux wants to make a dent on the desktop, they have to do stuff like this.

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.

Re:standards are good

[Brandybuck]

Both versions of killall are useful. But the solution shouldn't be to get rid of one in favor of the other, but to simply use different names for the commands. Tada! That's why Solaris has both killall and pkill!

Why is it useful? I would think that's obvious. To write shutdown scripts with! killall doesn't kill all processes, it only kills all processes not directly related to the shutdown process. While the same thing can be done with a quick shell script, the current solution probably uses fewer resources.

Re:This is nonsense

[Nailer]

Actually, RPM is the standard packaging format for LSB. Thank God for gentoo...

Why do you need a different packaging system to download and compile software and its dependencies based on your preferred compiler options?

Last time I checked, you don't. up2date can download source packages, rpmbuild can rebuild them, and you can use cflags with RPM just like anything else.

Sure, Gentoo automates that, but there's no reason they need a seperate packaging system to di it.

Additonally Suse, Red Hat and everyone else already use optimized bianries where it matters, automatically installing the right kernel and c libaries based on processor type. Multimedia sites for Fedora / RHEL and Suse also include optimized packages for totem / mplayer etc to, and up2date / yast automatically picks them out.