Re: Submitted for your approval: White paper draft
nicholas, plz forgive me for focusing purely on the negative;
your paper is basically excellent material.
---
when it comes to promoting understanding and appreciation
of the LSB, i think one of the biggest challenges is going
to be clarification of what it does not represent, rather
than what it does.
"Linux Standard Base" is not all that one could easily infer
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while your paper does indeed discuss some things that the
LSB is not, it doesn't seem to try to head off the serious
misperceptions evident in the recent discussion started by
robert current.
LSB is not "necessary", and is not an official authority
========================================================
imo, to suggest that the LSB is necessary, or that the LSB
is an authority, creates numerous problems. yes it is likely
to tremendously simplify life for many consumers and
developers and distributors. yes it has broad support.
but to state anything more than that is unwise, imo.
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here's some specific suggestions for modifying your paper
(and, while you're about it, the LSB mission statement?):
1. qualify "Linux offerings", "Linux distributions" et al
with the adjective "mainstream". this will help to stem
one of the biggest themes of criticism by current and
others, by allowing that you are not necessarily addressing
the needs of, say, the linux router project's developers
and customers. it's a simple change that makes a big
semantic difference.
2. replace statements such as "development and support of
standards" with "development and support of a set of
standards". imo, given the context in which the LSB
will be presented, it's too easy to infer from the former
that the LSB is an official linux standards body. imo,
you are better off not going there, at least not yet.
the latter phrase leaves this aspect unspecified.
3. reduce the absolute tone of claims. replacing the
word "need" with "would benefit from", and qualifying
"customers", "developers" etc. with "many" would help in
many cases.
4. in the section dealing with what the LSB is not,
explicitly state that it may not be appropriate for
some specialized distributions, e.g. the linux router
project.
i would recommend that you go a little further, mentioning
that some members of the linux community are discussing
options related to these specialized distributions
and that any developments in these areas are expected
to be LSB compliant in some way.
----
one final point...
the meta message: the LSB is a symbol of Linux's weakness
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depending on how your paper is to be used and introduced
as part of LSB pr, you might need to allow for a
significant number of uninformed or "hostile" readers.
i fear that a common theme, among those members of the
press and public who have yet to get the Linux zeitgeist,
will be the notion that the LSB is actually evidence of
the opposite of your intent -- that it just goes to show
that Linux is never going to be anything like as compatible
as Windows will be and is just way too technical. after
all, Windows doesn't have to have such an initiative,
and when M$ releases pr materials about standards and
such, it always paints a rosy high-level picture and
ignores the messy details.
i think this issue should be one of the biggest things
to be addressed in pr materials.
imo, addressing this will require at least a passing
reference to how the commercial closed source single
vendor way is different to the open standards multiple
vendor way of the internet and Linux, and that the LSB
demonstrates the ability for open source communities
to "spontaneously" address co-ordination issues without
the need for an official central control.
imo, it will also require a de-emphasis of the technical
issues involved. otherwise there's a meta message that to
use Linux, you have to be more technically inclined.
while that is clearly true to a certain extent, it is,
i believe, one of the very things the LSB is trying to
counter. depending on how your paper is to be used and
introduced as part of LSB pr, de-emphasis of technical
details might mean that a lot of your paper should
become a technical addendum for those of the press
that actually have a clue.
--
Ralph Mellor: http://www.dimp.com/ralphmellor.html 615.292.2917 x2
If I have my life over, I'm sure I'll believe in reincarnation.
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