Re: a couple of questions on LSB compliance

[Daniel Quinlan <quinlan@transmeta.com>]

H Peter Anvin <hpa@transmeta.com> writes:

> I think this is a mistake.  I believe LSB ought to be a modular
> standard; there is fundamentally no need for X on a headless server,
> although it may be *desirable*.

Well, there is actually no need for X on any server or client.  The
point is that if a distribution is LSB compliant, then everyone can
count on having X installed on the system.  Some minimal X support is
required if you want to use X remotely.

The LSB has to choose some minimal set, and everyone has agreed (until
now) that X should be in that set.

> A modular standard also makes it much easier to extend into areas that
> not everyone may want to use, but which we want to make interoperable.

X11R6 is less than 100MB of disk space.  I disagree that X should be
modularized out.  This isn't that controversial, but I'll ask the
distributions and vendors to be certain.

Also, we do have the option of making X optional (a mistake, which
while technically correct, has a number of disadvantages), but still
part of the main LSB specification.

- Dan