Re: Wake Up and Smell the Coffee It's Not 1970!
On Tue, Mar 28, 2000 at 01:22:49PM -0500, Steve Schveighoffer wrote:
> Michael Stone wrote:
> > Why does there need to be a specification for dns servers? For an
> > application that simple, I'm not sure that LSB is relevant. To date, LSB
> > has concentrated on desktop applications--because that's where the
> > problems are.
>
> Yeah, but don't DNS servers need to have the correct version of libc?
> Don't DNS server developers want to avoid porting to different linux
> systems? Wouldn't DNS developers want a proven packaging method to
> install on "LSB compliant" systems? The same argument for having an LSB
> exists for every application developed by a third party, not just GUI
> apps.
Not really. The argument against including X libraries & whatnot in LSB
has been that it's too much stuff for a stripped-down special-purpose
server. I submit that a app intended for such a server can get away with
saying "I need libc5" on the box. The person maintaining a
*special-purpose server* should have enough knowledge to understand what
that means, and a single library requirement isn't too hard (subjective)
to satisfy. The picture is a lot different in the desktop app world
where you might need particular versions of libc, libgif, libjpeg,
libgtk, libesd, etc.--those requirements are more complicated and the
target audience has less technical knowledge.
Put another way, an LSB that standardizes numerous special cases will be
no more concise for simple cases than the status quo (cf. "requires
glibc2.1 and FHS 2.0" with "requires LSBbasic1.0a, LSBdns2.1c") and
uselessly complicated for the least-common-denominator user (cf.
"requires LSB 1.0" and "requires LSBbasic1.0a, LSBx2.0, LSBfoo1.3,
LSBbar1.1")
--
Mike Stone
Reply to: