Re: Proposal: Source file package format
Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>> Subject: Re: Proposal: Source file package format
>>
>> ++ Enables convergence towards Linux Standard Base (LSB)
> Reducing incompatibility between the variants of the GNU operating
> system that use Linux as the kernel is a useful job. The GNU Project
> would be happy to cooperate with other people on this, if they
> approach us in a cooperative spirit respecting what we've done.
> However, the Linux Standards Base decided to standardize the GNU
> system as if the GNU Project had nothing to do with it.
Hi Richard. I apologize for not contacting you personally before now,
but the LSB is working with GNU Project developers, especially from
Debian. A few of the Debian people are:
- Dale Scheetz, author of the Debian GNU/Linux user guide,
is working on free software test suites for the LSB.
- Wichert Akkerman <wichert@liacs.nl>, the Debian GNU/Linux project
leader, participates on our specification mailing list.
- Several more Debian GNU/Linux developers are involved.
When the LSB was reformed last year, we actually merged with the Linux
Compatibility Standard (Debian and Red Hat), and Debian and Red Hat
are still part of the project.
I've also talked with Ulrich Drepper and Miguel de Icaza, starting
early this year. SuSE has been a member of the LSB since the
beginning; Mandrake is now joining the LSB. Most of the other
participating groups are listed on our web page at www.linuxbase.org.
Is there anyone else we should contact?
It would be great if more GNU developers (especially in the area of
the GCC compiler and glibc since they are both significant
compatibility issues) could participate. Ulrich Drepper has been
helpful several times when I've seen him in person.
All of our mailing lists are open and public.
> They have a right to do that if they wish. GNU is free software, and
> that means people have the right to make their own versions without
> even consulting us. But that's not a friendly approach, so we are not
> going to treat their choices as standards to be followed.
Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the email to which you
originally responded, but I'll try to explain where our specification
currently stands with regard to packages.
We currently have penciled-in the use of RPM for binary packages since
it is free software (DSFG-compliant) and supported by almost every
Linux distribution, including Debian. We haven't said anything about
source packages, so I'm a little confused about the Subject: of this
message. We would be interested in including in our specification
another better format ... if it existed and was adopted by the
community like RPM has already been adopted.
- Dan
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