On Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 08:43:55AM +0100, Andrew Josey wrote:
> On Aug 17, 10:28am in "Re: LSB.fhs failure ", Anthony Towns wrote:
> > It still seems a bit meaningless to have lots of test cases when there's
> > not even a prototypical working product (ie, some .lsb packages that
> > can be installed on some distro), though.
> Without tests we won't know (a) whether the specifications are
> useable/correct or (b) whether implementations implement the specifications.
> In general tests provide a useful measure of the quality of a
> specification, embodying the requirements in code that can be run
> and produce measureable results.
Without actual lsb packages and an installer, you don't know if the
specifications have anything to do with helping ISV's distribute
Linux software. With just the SUS and no actual Unix kernel or apps,
you wouldn't know if "Unix" was a useful operating system worth being
compatible with, or if it was headed off in some completely wrong
direction...
None of which is to dispute the utility of all these testing things:
without them you wouldn't be able to be very confident if people claiming
compliance with the LSB were compliant or not, which'd render the LSB
completely useless pretty gee darn quickly.
But it'd be nice to see some demonstration that the LSB spec is actually
useful for what it's meant to be for, rather than just having to take
it on faith.
I'd've thought it'd be completely trivial to make up a .lsb that'll
probably install on future LSB compliant distros, though. Install Red
Hat or similar, setup the libs right, build an rpm, and rename it,
and that's it. No?
Cheers,
aj, still stuck on an unimplemented spec being considered "1.0"
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
``_Any_ increase in interface difficulty, in exchange for a benefit you
do not understand, cannot perceive, or don't care about, is too much.''
-- John S. Novak, III (The Humblest Man on the Net)
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