Red Hat to ignore LSB?

warpeightbot writes "CNN.com is carrying an IDG article expressing concern that Red Hat may not support the Linux Standards Base for various reasons. Sounds like FUD to me, but if it's on CNN, it has to be dealt with one way or the other... " The article itself is like the 90th Red Hat conspiracy piece I've seen in the mainstream now. Its crossed the line into amusing now for me anyway.

Comments

Well, at least someone asked RedHat this time

[Praxxus]

THAT was different, anyway. Of course, the article was still along the lines of of:

RH: Yes. We support the LSB. We dig it. We're down with it. Go Linux!!

IDG: BUT...they might not! And if they don't, thisandthisandthis could happen, and then Linux would suck! Be scared!!!

Wow. That was stunning journalism, a-yup.

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I don't think this is FUD...

[Pudding Yeti]

This is what I said last time this story came up:

They've figured out that Linux stories attract eyes, so they're going to write about Linux. Enter the other factor, which is what to write about once they've decided that they're going to write. Well, conflict sells. Heck, conflict has been the primary basis of Western (and I mean that in the classic sense) narrative for millenia. We've run through the cycle of "GNOME storms the MS desktop stronghold" and "Big Name Adopters Prove Microsoft is doomed," so the next best thing to do is troll (and I use that in the "gill net fishing" sense) for some other conflict.

I still maintain that as accurate.

That doesn't make this FUD. It just makes it sloppy, lazy, reporting from people who believe what they read from anyone who posts a suitably inflammatory comment on Slashdot.

Heck, just to get nasty about it, I'd submit that if reporters reading this site decided to set their filters up to "2," they'd probably report about this much less.

How can something be FUD when it's probably plucked in all of its repetitive, paranoid, strident glory straight from the pages of one of the standard bearers of the Linux revolution?

Don't by the way, try to claim agents of Bill are seeding this story. A quick look back at any story here that's ever reported on a new Red Hat, Debian, or other distro release will indicate that even Microsoft probably doesn't have the cash to pay that many agent provocateurs. Nope. it comes from in the fold, and now we get to wallow in the media-mediated tripe we created.

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mphall@cstone.nospam.net

Red Hat and the GPL

[Master Switch]

Red Hat's unwavering support of the GPL, and their strict insistance on applying it to all that they do, leads me to believe that they are not, nor will they ever, try to take "ownership" of the Linux movement. Red Hat has done a fine job, and whether you like to admit it or not, if it wasn't for them, Linux awareness would be two or three years behind where it is today. Red Hat was one of the first vendors to support multiple platforms. They put up the money to help with GNOME, and now also KDE. They fund the development of graphics card drivers, and they are partially responsible for much of the recent Kernel development(Alan Cox). I don't see the other vendors stepping to the plate like this. Don't get me wrong, I like SuSE, SlackWare, Debian, etc... But I am somewhat dissapointed with other vendors willingness to give back to Linux.

Let's look at this with fresh eyes.

[BlackHawk]

In reading many of the other comments, I see that there is a decidedly supportive tone directed at both Red Hat and LSB. While this may be the "correct" course of action, let's look at it again, from a fresh perspective, one free from past experience. I can provide that, since I just became acquainted with Linux in the middle of last year, and have not yet been in a position to implement either at home or at work. (All of that changing by June, however. ) As something of a disclaimer, I will state up front that when I type "Linux", I mean the OS which is also referred to as "GNU/Linux" by some. But just Linux is shorter, I'm not such a great typist.

I've been following the idea of a "standard Linux" with some interest. I don't have the hacking skills that many here have, and while the idea of hacking at the kernel or creating drivers, or apps for Linux is one I hold dear, the reality is that I won't be doing that for a bit yet. No, I'll be using Linux as a user first, and there's where the idea of a standard is appealing. I want apps to work with the distro I choose, without requiring me to restructure parts of the source code first. OK, yeah, that's the user in me talking, but it's also the IS Manager in me. Deploying desktops is tedious enough without contemplating the current state of Linux desktop deployment.

So the LSB sounds good. It's good in theory, and I feel it'll be good in practice. But for a moment, let's give the benefit of the doubt not to Red Hat nor the LSB, but to "conspiracy", as Taco put it. For the record, no I'm not a believer in the conspiracy, but I like to cover all the angles I can see. I play chess; it's no different.

Is Red Hat as supportive of the LSB as they seem? Well, it appears so. We've heard from any number of people that they are. But what do they stand to gain or lose with the LSB? There are quotes on record where Red Hat personnel have claimed that standards groups slow down innovation. And Red Hat likes to innovate, to be sure. Referring to standards groups as "overhead" is extremely revealing of the true sentiments of the speaker. After all, with Red Hat being only one member of the LSB, what are the odds that the standard will end up looking exactly like Red Hat? Minimal, at best, meaning that Red Hat will have to rework at least some of its distro to match the new standard. "Rework" always means non-profitable labor, hours spent that are not "billable". And Red Hat is a business. And all for-profit businesses exist to turn a profit, that's a given. Right now, Red Hat (argueably) has the majority market share. Adhering to an LSB created by a committee whose members include some of their competitors will likely result in those competitors making market gains. After all, if you no longer need to have Red Hat to ensure compatibility with certain applications, then why buy it? Support? Well, yes, but with the advent of LinuxCare, that may not be such a selling point. And there will be other "LinuxCare"'s on the horizon. So is it Red Hat's best interest to support the LSB? From a purely business perspective, while the tempo of the game belongs to them, perhaps not. Mind you, out-and-out rejection of the LSB will work against Red Hat as well. So perhaps outer support of the standard is a good idea, while the committee takes alot of time to arrive at that standard. Time for Red Hat to consolidate market position.

So now, let's flip to the other side. Who stands to gain the most from having the LSB? Well, us, really, since a standard Linux will be easier to write to, add to, etc. But in the short term, having that standard will benefit companies whose distribution is not Red Hat. And I'm going to squarely point a finger at Caldera. I have tested Caldera, back when I was going to run a NetWare class and showcase the OS to my students. I have to say, I chose not to do it, because of the problems I had during the installation and the fact that several very cool apps I wanted to show wouldn't work with the older version of libc OpenLinux 1.3 had. So would Caldera stand to gain from an LSB? Yes, and not just because of the same reasons we would. The LSB will almost certainly incorporate pieces from Caldera. Or at the very least, it will require some pieces to be written from scratch. Either way, those pieces will place Caldera on equal if not superior footing to Red Hat, at least in those areas. This will give them leverage to use in the marketplace, leverage that they would not have had without that standard.

So is Machiavelli the author of the LSB? No, I don't think so. I like the standard idea. I wish I knew more about Linux, because I'd love to help. but for those of us watching the coming LSB battles... and there will be some, there's no doubt of that... we need to make sure we watch the moves closely. But also watch the players. Sometimes a chance comment will reveal motives they'd prefer were kept hidden.

Unofficial Statement on Red Hat Software and LSB

[Michael K. Johnson]

This is not official word, since I'm not an officer of Red Hat Software. That said, almost everything I say here, Red Hat Software has said officially in several contexts, and regular /. readers will see little new here. I'm not sure that this statement is needed, frankly; the majority of the comments I have seen so far are right on the money.

Red Hat Software is supporting the LSB project both practically, by participation, and philosophically, by agreeing that the LSB is a good idea and expressing our expectation that it will produce a useful and workable standard).

By now, most /. readers will have heard Red Hat Software's general policy, rarely broken, of not preannouncing software releases. We stick to this policy for many reasons, but two really good reasons are our absolute disgust for vaporware and murphy's law. Things will go wrong and change our delivery dates from time to time. That does not keep us from working on software, obviously -- it just keeps us from preannouncing.

The same is true for our support of the LSB. We will not preannounce that we will make Red Hat Linux LSB-compliant when the LSB does not exist. That does not keep us from expressing our expectation (it's stronger than simple hope) that the LSB will be a good standard that we will want to implement because it will make our users' lives (and our own work) simpler and easier. We contribute publically to the effort to build the LSB standard, reserving our judgment for the completed standard.

To the folks who think that Red Hat Software is trying to corner the market in black helicopters, I'll only say that a good enough LSB standard would be very good for all of Linux, abolutely and most definitely including Red Hat Software. But if you think that Red Hat has bought the black helicopters, you aren't going to believe a word I say anyway. ;-)

Waiting for standards before adopting them

[slk]

From what the article says, Redhat is waiting for at least a draft version of the standard before saying they will support it. They feel that standards are overhead (they are, to a degree).

There are two separate issues here: the value of standards, and when to adopt a standard.

Standards are what the internet (as we know it) is built on. The Web would not have happened without a standardized http, nor compatability between so many e-mail systems without SMTP. Standards like HTTP, FTP, Telnet, TCP/IP, and DNS are what have made the internet possible. What happens if an application decides to handle DNS differently than everybody else? It won't work. What about a web browser that sends nonstandard HTTP queris? It won't work, at least not consistently. Having said that, standards can be overhead. I'm sure there are flaws in all of the accepted internet standards, but they work, and they work well.

On the other hand, there are bad standards. It seems that most of these are produced by groups that don't regularly handle standardization (you don't see too many bad ones from IEEE, IETF, etc). The LSB is a committee, and might or might not do a good job. Redhat's wait-and-see attitude towards the standard is quite reasonable.