Debian Dropping Linux Standard Base (lwn.net)

basscomm writes: For years (as seen on Slashdot) the Linux Standard Base has been developed as an attempt to reduce the differences between Linux distributions in an effort significant effort. However, Debian Linux has announced that they are dropping support for the Linux Standard Base due to a lack of interest.

From the article: "If [Raboud's] initial comments about lack of interest in LSB were not evidence enough, a full three months then went by with no one offering any support for maintaining the LSB-compliance packages and two terse votes in favor of dropping them. Consequently, on September 17, Raboud announced that he had gutted the src:lsb package (leaving just lsb-base and lsb-release as described) and uploaded it to the "unstable" archive. That minimalist set of tools will allow an interested user to start up the next Debian release and query whether or not it is LSB-compliant—and the answer will be 'no.'"

Comments

Re: Debian Spiral

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian is behind Ubuntu and Linux mint. That accounts for most desktop Linux installs doesn't it?

Re: Debian Spiral

[Austerity Empowers]

it's "getting a bit old" still seems a little tone-deaf to me.

I think it amounts to "your arguments have been heard, logged, rejected, but you have the right to scream I told you so later", which is really where the incessant whining needs to end. I'm not convinced Wayland is famine, nor that systemd is pestilence. Unity certainly rode the pale horse, but the beauty of Linux is that we just fork around the offending software and carry on. Unlike when Microsoft or Apple do something reprehensible and we just have to suffer through it, with Linux we can just lob it off and replace it with something else.

When Ubuntu gets rid of Unity, I'll use Ubuntu again, until then there are plenty of good options. If systemd or Wayland make me cry, I'll do away with them. It's magic. Best, the people who like that sort of thing can keep having it, and not bother me in the slightest.

Re: Debian Spiral

[Sarten-X]

it happened over your continual vociferous objections

That's exactly the problem.

I have a dog in this fight. I'm a sysadmin, who often gets involved in engineering Linux-based systems. My top priority is that everything works reliably when I need it. I don't really care what style of startup scripts we use. If it's something I already know, that makes life easier in some ways, but I'm not so arrogant as to assume that a better way isn't possible. If that new system's better just because I know that somebody's reviewed their assumptions in the last decade, that alone is worth a bit.

Then there's Slashdot. While most rational discussions about systemd tend to discuss pros and cons, Slashdot's hivemind seems to have decided that systemd is simply evil, with no clear reason why. I understand that we're all traditionalists, but this often goes beyond common sense. As you've noted, the arguments are loud, repetitive, and vehement, and they've been going on for longer than I care to remember. There are no suggestions for improvement, other than to fork huge projects and insist that nothing can ever change.

Frankly, the objections are a bit old. They're often just reiterating rumors and outdated information, and contribute nothing to the conversation. I expect the developers have heard the objections, and either resolved the complaints or chosen intentionally to take a different path. As a community, can we please now move on to the next topic of discussion?