Re: Re: LSB bastards
On Sun, Jul 01, 2001 at 07:01:02PM -0500, Steve Langasek wrote:
> If the software is DFSG-compliant, the LSB is and always will be a non-issue.
> Debian will assimilate that software in due time, do a better job of packaging
> it, and get the integration right where other distros will continue to
> flounder.
Which means that the LSB is not very relevant to Debian after all.
> If the software is non-free, and you're of the opinion that this software
> should be available for users of Debian, the LSB is a Good Thing, and its use
> of RPM is also a Good Thing.
Except that the LSB is not targetted at proprietary software at all. This
is said in their Mission statement (http://www.linuxbase.org/mission.html),
and I sincerley hope that they mean it.
Of course, there is a certain amount of sillyness, as the LSB is mostly of
benefit to proprietary software. As such, I regard the LSB as unimportant.
It remains to be seen if it will be accepted by the free software community.
Maybe it is sufficient for its success if it will be accepted by the free
software community developing Linux specific applications. There seems to
be an inherent conflict because it stretches out its neck far in the realm
of generic applications, but denies everything except Linux as irrelevant
for the LSB. ("3. We are not required to conform to any standard except our
own."). This can make it a poor standard to follow for an application that
must be portable to other free operating systems.
> LSB support is a worthwhile goal;
This remains to be seen. It is certainly jumping the gun to decide it right
now. The version number of 1.0.0 is probably the strategy of some proprietary
softwrae vendors, "use your users as beta testers". I think we should wait until
they fixed the most critical bugs, and how it is accepted by developers of
free software before we bend for- and backwards supporting it.
Evaluation of the amount of bending necessary is certainly useful by people
who are interested in Debian becoming an LSB compliant system. But
discussion of the steps Debian will take in this direction can at this stage
probably be deferred until LSB 5.0.13 or so ;)
Thanks,
Marcus
--
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org brinkmd@debian.org
Marcus Brinkmann GNU http://www.gnu.org marcus@gnu.org
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de
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