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Why Aren't More Distros Becoming LSB Certified?
mydoghasworms asks: "I have done much thinking lately about Linux Standards Base. The idea makes lots of sense: Adopt a standard which will ensure that if some piece of software is compiled on one LSB-compliant system, it will run on any other LSB-compliant system.
This would be great for members of the general public who are looking for an alternative to Windows, don't want to pay for Mac, but are looking for a platform where installing and running software is as easy as on the platform they are used to. Seen in that light, if LSB lives up to its promise, it could be the step in Linux's evolution that could see it adopted by the general public. That leaves the question: Why is LSB not seeing greater adoption?"
"Is it because it is not marketed well enough? Is the certification process too difficult? Are there perhaps technical challenges to LSB certification not often discussed? If people agree that LSB is in fact what Linux needs right now to ensure widespread adoption, what should be done to create awareness of LSB? Should communities developing Open Source/Free Software projects be encouraged to provide LSB binaries? Your input would be most welcome here."
I have heard of it. I thought it was illegal, and if you drop too much, it can lead to permanent psychosis.
Certification costs money. To have credibility it must be peer reviewed, or reviewed/audited/approved by an external body. Then there's the QA and testing process. And this activity is not a one time activity, but a long term commitment to regression testing "every patch".
Given that many linux distros are pretending to be enterprise-ready w/o enterprise sales or revenue would indicate that they are unable, uncapable, or unwilling to be certified. Basically they can't afford it.
Of course I am speaking in general terms about linux distributions and the industry in general, there are numerous examples which can be used to refute my generalisations. However I think there's ALOT of consolidation required in the Linux world yet to achieve some of the more lofty goals of open source.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
In case anyone else is curious, from this 2002 article:
I didn't find this info on the Open Group's website...Ha! I kill me!
It helps that if you use distro A, and I use distro B, and I write some software on my distro, we already know that it'll work on yours if they're both certified.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
If you're the producer of a Linux distro, do you want to have to recompile and patch EVERY SINGLE PACKAGE you put in your distro, EVERY TIME you update it? Or else require all the users to do the same if they want to run apps you didn't include, or update them when you haven't?
Admittedly, this is a worst-case scenario; no distro will be incompatible with ALL apps. Nonetheless, this is the situation that prevails when you don't have a standard base to use. Having a standard reduces the effort for everyone involved. Things will "just run".
I've just spent 3 days installing some esoteric science packages on a Linux distro they weren't certified for, and I could never have succeeded if I weren't an uber-geek. This is not the experience we want Linux users to have, regardless of whether we are commercially oriented or just wanna rock Open Source.
I hope this sheds some light on why a standard is needed...
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
I have heard of LSB
Leisure Suit Bill...(Larry's Cousin)
Wasn't he President a few years back?
Because we're talking about the average Joe getting away from Redmond. Some of them are looking for a solution where they can use their current machines and rid themsleves of the Windows fueled joys called Spyware.
/usr/bin/ and others in /etc/program/ while the more restricted programs reside in /home/usr/bin/, how is a person new to the world of Linux supposed to know what goes where!?
If you are a producer of a linux distro and you do things your own way, that's fine; but don't look for many people merging to your own specific way of 'doing things'. People like things that they're at least semi-familiar with. If developers of linux distro's keep changing 'standards', nobody will want to switch to linux, because as far as they can tell, SuSE is as far different from Fedora as Windows is to FreeBSD.
Microsoft has kept a tradition of 'C:/Program Files/' for installed applications which makes it easy for any windows user to jump from one MS platform to another. These relatively simple standards are just another security blanket that people refuse to let go of when they're tempted to switch operating systems.
Forgive my lack of knowledge in the numerous GNU/Linux organization structures, but if one has to install some applications in
I believe the entire movement of a standardization process creates this much needed security blanket that so many desktop users have been reluctant to let go of.
Once again, if you're a producer of a linux distro, you're not the average desktop user, you are not a majority. There is no need to put down a solution that you may never use, which has great potential to the masses.
-Xtrvd
Why would linux aim to have just that ?
if you drop too much, it can lead to permanent psychosis.
Think you're confusing it with BSD.
We use the LTSP project with about 45 users network booting to a XFCE desktop right now. They browse the web, access our exchange 5.5 server using Thunderbird and have a LDAP directory with auto-name completion as they type email addresses. They access our 5250 iSeries system, and use OpenOffice for word / excel needs on a Windows NT shared drive. We love it, works great. Some more 'advanced' end users chafe some because they cant download their own screen savers or games, but frankly we LOVE that part of LTSP!
No I didnt spell check this post...
DISLCAIMER: IAADM (I Am A Distro Maintainer)
put simply, LSB doesn't solve the desktop problem. It wasn't meant for that.
The LSB was written to make sure that all those booming distros back in the days they were booming, were somehow unified by a comming file system structure, library setups etc.
They really only mean to cover the (B)ase. This base was since then widely adopted and almost any distro conforms to this (B)ase more than 95%. Only outliers like slackware diverge, and often only minimally.
This puts the burden on distro maintainers to get a certification on something that is completely obvious, and non-beneficial. It's like getting a prep school diploma when you're in high scool already.
Also, the LSB is needlessly strict on some rules that hinder progress (init handling - chkconfig etc), where we should have moved to completely new solutions already (I loved that Makefile approach).
so, expect more from freedesktop.org than from LSB...
You're absolutely correct. UNIX vendors tried this a long time ago and failed. The problem became you had multiple UNIX vendors accomplishing the same thing multiple different ways with no standards between them. This, of course, was one of the major downfalls of UNIX, and in part why it failed and how NT and Windows prevailed.
The Linux server world and ESPECIALLY the desktop world are falling into the same trap. Multiple vendors solving the same problem different ways. It is becoming more and more obvious that standardization is next big test of Linux. Linux will NEVER grow out of it's niche if vendors and developers don't start participating in standards.