Slashdot Mirror
Linux Foundation Promises LSB4
gbjbaanb writes "Ever thought it was difficult to write software for Linux? For multiple distros? InternetNews reports that the LSB is making a push for their next release (due out later this year) that should help make all that much easier. Although the LSB has not lived up to expectations, this time around Linux has a higher profile and ISVs are more interested. This is to help persuade them to develop applications that will run on any LSB-compliant Linux distribution. If it gets adopted, LSB 4 could bring a new wave of multidistribution Linux application development. 'It is critically important for Linux to have an easy way for software developers to write to distro "N," whether it's Red Hat, Ubuntu or Novell,' [said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation.] 'The reason you need that is because we don't want what happened to Unix to happen to Linux in terms of fragmentation.' The LSB defines a core set of APIs and libraries, so ISVs can develop and port applications that will work on LSB-certified Linux distributions."
The quote in the summary reads:
'It is critically important for Linux to have an easy way for software developers to write to distro 'N,' whether it's Red Hat, Ubuntu or Novell,"
Personally (as a Linux on the desktop user), I'm a lot more concerned about easily acquiring installing software, than whether it has problems with my distro. For the most part I can get software to run, but it can be a huge pain in the butt. I wish LSB would focus on extending and standardizing package formats and creating advanced standards for package managers to simplify that part of my workflow. I never wonder, "will this run on Ubuntu," so much as "which package format is this in, or how hard is it going to be to compile and update."
It relates to his statement that I quoted.
That shows how clueless he is regarding the history of *nix.
It was the various PROPRIETARY licenses that caused the fragmentation because an improvement made by HP had to be specifically licensed by Sun to be included in Solaris.
But with the GPL, the improvements made in one fork are available to ALL forks.
Therefore, the fragmentation will not happen because if a feature is worth it, it will be ported to the other forks. Without the need to coordinate licenses with HP or Sun or anyone else.
The GPL rocks.
LSB isn't needed, Linux distros just need to implement 16-year-old standards. I think most do put env in the right place, although some also put it in /bin (which should only contain binaries needed to boot the system in single-user mode).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Instead of trying to make all the distributions the same, why don't they make a library that abstract away the difference?
Example: If my program need to link to a ssl library(Such as openssl), version 2.3 or newer, I should call a function .so file, or null if the file is not installed. There could then be a
findLibrary("ssl",2,3) which would return the path to the needed
function to also ask the os to install the needed library if it were not there.
Each linux distribution should then implement the library in a way, so that the Redhat version, might forward the call to rpm, while the debian version of the library would query the dep database insted.
And instead of the infinite debate on /opt vs /usr/local the program could just call getPathForUserInstalledSoftware();
And getDefaultCompilerPath() instead of the current autoconfig hack.
Then a linux standard base, would just be a specification of the needed functions in LinuxStandardBaseLibrary.
And we would newer have to use the autoconfig hack. (The library might ofcause also be implemented on Solaris, and maybe even cygwin/windows)
The Linux Standard Base is essentially a farce. The Wikipedia article linked to above gives a pretty good overview of why, but the primary reason is that developers don't want a set of tests that they can run against their application to see if it is portable. They want a binary distribution that they can actually install their software on and test against. Originally that's precisely what the LSB was supposed to be. It was going to be a small installable distribution based on Debian.
At the time Caldera thought that would be problematic, and so the current incarnation of the LSB was born. Not that anyone uses it, as it is a complete waste of time.