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Linux Standard Effort Edges Ahead
ErikPeterson writes "The Free Standards Group has released its third version of the Linux Standard Base, an effort to unify some of the workings of the open-source operating system.
The LSB is designed to make it easier for those producing higher-level software to support different versions of Linux. Pledges to conform to the requirements of Version 3 are Red Hat, Novell's Suse Linux, Asianux and Debian."
Pledges to conform to the requirements of Version 3 are Red Hat, Novell's Suse Linux, Asianux and Debian.
Four down, only 458 to go.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
A standard is a standard when everyone is using it. Just calling it one doesn't make it so.
I used to think Linux was cool -- then I turned 14.
What the LSB should, imo, do is make autopackage the format of choice for installing applications and then have the default package manager (such as rpms and debs and stuff) to download the dependent libs and keep the base system up-to-date. That way, everyone's happy. The newbies get their easy program installers and the seasoned veterans get their apt. But, alas, it's apparently not to be.
Why doesn't he blurb link to the LSB website at all? it's here Anyway's.
Whats the timing issue mentioned in TFA?
Wow. I'm very happy. LSB might actually make Linux useful for those of us trying to make a living off of software development...
Well to be fair, the last article talked about why LSB is awful and shouldn't be implemented. This article mentions the other side of it. You're right it's not exactly a dupe, but then again, there's nothing really new here.
The article gets funnier when you read LSB as Least Significant Bit.
Here are the LSB 3.0 Release notes. I'd appreciate it if somebody explained if there is a significant or revolution or something. Thank you.
Are these four distribution releasing this as a standard or only these four have agreed to follow it?
Because in former case, it will never be standard in the first place. And in the latter, well, how are we going to ensure it is followed by others too?
I forgot to be anonymous.
This sort of thing is a necessity. With the variety of Distros and each having its own idea of where things should be, it leads to a lot of unecessary confusion. Regardless of whether the confusion is legitimate or slightly hyped by bullet points in paid research docs, it exists.
I'm impressed that Red Hat has signed on.
Along with 2 other of the more established distros being onboard this standard has a chance.
I mean, do software developers usually keep to this standard, or is it more like them cutting some slack due to numerous distros not adhering to it?
What if those releasing the libs/support files (QT/GTK2, etc.) _only_ allowed you to use them for free, _IF_ the end product adhered to LSB specs.? --It'd force developers to be less sloppy, and some form of unity might come sooner than expected..
Yes, an arrogant idea, but just read it as an "what-if" -kind of thing.
A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
I know the debian port for AMD64 decided to make the 64bit arch a first class citizen. i.e. there is a /lib directory. Fedora OTOH uses a /lib64 directory. This is like saying there is something special about 64bit libraries on a 64bit arch. Does the new LSB specify how this should be handled? Who will have to change, debian or Red Hat? I run Fedora and am disappointed to have a /lib64 full of stuff and /lib that is almost empty. Thoughts on this?
Since many distros is based on RedHat and Debian they too will inherit the base system and be very similar to LSB of not entierly.
HTTP/1.1 400
It would be nice if Ubuntu committed to it seeing as though they've become the 10,000 pound gorilla of Linux distributions.
Note: this isn't anti-Ubuntu. I run Ubuntu.
I don't see how a standard that uses RPM as the mandatory package format will ever gain enough consensus to be successful.
What kind of a standard is this anyway? For example:
Applications are also encouraged to uninstall cleanly.
Um, that's great. Where's the definition of "cleanly"? Where's the rationale? Where's the implementation notes? This thing reads like a few people got together and jotted down a few notes on what they'd like to see. This ain't a specification. Sure, they go into great detail about the format of the RPM file - but that's already an established format that they don't need to explain.
3.4.x still marked as an unstable ebuild last time I checked.
Now, THIS move by the "Penguin People"? A smart one...
Why, imo?
WELL, it will hopefully STOP the "fragmentation @ binaries levels" that UNIX (the predecessor, inferior currently imo to Linux in many ways) encountered!
(Which is, imo, the ONLY real reason we are not all running some form of UNIX on our PC's today instead of Windows, Mac, or Linux as OS' etc./et all).
Kudos on such things happening to the "Penguin crowd", because it's needed imo. Linux 2.6x core is IMPRESSIVE (most impressive) & KDE rocks too imo.
Would be a shame to see that fall apart between Linux versions!
APK
P.S.=> Next, is standards as much as possible between Linux & Win32 (if not MacOS X) so they interoperate on MANY levels (document formats, webpage standards, heck even binary level compatibility which tools like Delphi/Kylix, C/C++, & mostly imo, RealBasic 2005) will be of GREAT aid/help in doing...
E.G.-> Imagine writing code ONCE, & running that same sourcecode as an executable anywhere!
(AND, not using interpretation layers like the Java runtimes, VB runtimes, MSVC++ runtimes as intermediaries which to be blunt about it, slow things down in message-passing overheads & translations on Win32 alone)!
Speed & binary compatibility IS possible, if everyone acts together on it imo... this is the future, & what ought to be the "thinking behind 21st century personal computing"... apk
... but they can stifle innovation. I heard somewhere that KDE had problems with freedesktop.org, cos they wanted to do some fairly sensible things - but it wasn't in the standard... Maybe someone else can fill in details...
And, I might mention, I think it matters A Lot.
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http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1861272,00.a
From where I sit, Red Hat's Drepper
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/19
wants to throw the baby of open standardization out with the bathwater of LSB standardization testing, which could still stand a lot of improvement.
With open standardization, Linux could go the way of Intel Unix--shudder!
Steven
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=paragraph
For those of us not in the latin, scientific, legal, or political professions, here's the descriptions.
De facto: is a Latin expression that means "in fact" or "in practice".
De jure: is a Latin expression that means "based on law".
After migrating from Slackware -> Caldera -> SuSE, I am now a happy Ubuntu user.
Really, except for a few developer tools, just about everything that I need is in the main distribution, and can be trivially installed.
I actually have a small point here: for developers and experienced Linux users, running
For novice users, a good distribution like Ubuntu or SuSE is likely to have what people need with OOo, Firefox, a few games, etc.
Except for IntelliJ, it is difficult for me to imagine what other commercial software I would every want for Linux. I do buy programs for OS X and Windows, but I usually use Linux for getting work done, and for me not much is required except for development tools and a word processor. It would be interesting to hear from someone at JetBrains about how much effort it is packaging IntelliJ for various Linux distros.
** Healthier coding: http://cjskitchen.com/
What most people mean, though is the French "d' jour" meaning "of the day". for example, "This is my random act of snarkiness d' jour."
Besides, I like the Gentoo standard better.
I tried using LSB gcc to compile our applications and the 3.0.3-1 packages could not handle C++ code yet. I would get weird header errors on anything that included iostream. This seemed bizarre to me. Has anyone else actually tried using it? I'd be all for it if it actually worked...
Penguins always come in numbers. Get used to it.
You must be new here.
Why should I, a basic user with a home network, 2 children, 4 systems switch to Linux?
You shouldn't. You should use software tools that let you get the job you want to do done as quickly as possible... if that's MS Office, then so be it.
However, you may want to just stop and consider some of the possible implications of what you are doing.
Microsoft is rapidly coming to the conclusion that there is just *not enough* money to be made from just *selling* software. Therefore, they (and other commercial software entities) are looking at other ways of making money.
Firstly, they'll do their damnedest to keep you in an endless upgrade cycle. So they'll "break" your old software and hardware as much as they can to force you to upgrade constantly, thus generating more money.
Secondly, and preferably, Microsoft do not want you to *own* anything - they want you to *rent* it because then they have a nice monthly direct debit from your bank account as a nice guaranteed & regular source of income. The same is true of the music and movie companies who also want that nice rental income. Consequently, all parties want DRM badly so you end up paying more for products that ultimately give you less freedom than you enjoyed when those products were free of DRM and cheaper. They'll use the piracy argument as their excuse to implement this but the technology ultimately restricts the rights of the proper user, not the pirates. Plus the movie and music companies never seem to answer the questions as to why DVD and CD sales are *up* despite the effects of piracy.
Thirdly, MS Office. In my experience, 90%+ of home users have pirated versions of MS Office because they borrowed CDs from work to install it. But would those same users be so vocal about using MS Office over OpenOffice if they *had* to pay several hundred dollars/Euros/pounds for it. I think not...
Would you be so "anti" GIMP if you hadn't got Photoshop free with your printer and had to pay for it?
Fourthly, Open Source software is *not* free. It costs you no money but it puts a lot of responsibility in *your* hands. That means, to use it effectively, you have to learn how it works, ask questions and email software developers suggesting the features you want to see. Only then will it get the ease of use and functionality you want. If you're not prepared to do that then don't swap, it's that simple.
Linux is a mess.
Sorry, but how do you *know* this? Quite clearly, it's not so bad a "mess, otherwise the millions of people using it currently would presumably not be doing so. Sure, it has problems - but, in the smae vein, whilst I find Windows 2000 quite stable and usable, I consider Windows XP a "mess" due to the amount of bloat it contains and a user interface designed to sacrifice CPU cycles just for eye candy.
It's your choice whether to switch or not - in fact, Linux is *so* "willing to please", you don't actually need to "switch" - you can just sacrifice a few gigs of hard disk space and dual install it just to play with it at your leisure. And this will be an ideal opportunity for your kids to get a little more computer literate with exposure to two OSes, not just one...
So go ahead and use what software you want - after all, that's the idea of choice... but just be aware of what you *might* be sacrificing as a result of that choice, that's all I'm trying to say.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I agree that it should be the applications which have to conform, not the distros.
For starters, applications should not assume a certain directory layout, and should just install to the appropriate places based on the distro. Yes, this means that package managers might need to be slightly smarter than they currently are. But existing source-based installation already works for the majority of packages.
Case in point: GoboLinux. Now, those guys have introduced a more intuitive filesystem hierarchy that actually works and makes sense at the same time (which is rare.) However, Linux Standard Base, which depends on the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, outright prohibits their directory layout.
So... let's fast forward to when LSB is in widespread use. Application vendors start assuming that LSB is all they need to support "Linux". Distros who won't have a bar of the shitty legacy directory layout we've had to endure for decades will basically be punished for being forward-thinking.
So yeah, LSB sounds real great.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!