Lee Thomas Stephen wrote: 

> Flatpaks vs. Snaps and Docker vs. Podman are good.
> However, there must be some standard rules in a democracy like Linux.
> The Linux Foundation should take a step back and release a 4.2, as many 
> distributions still have LSB 4.
> The 4.2 release should improve architecture compatibility and add a few new 
> features.
> Then we can jump to an LSB 6 or something where more people have a say.
> There are many new performers in the Linux arena after 2008, and they will 
> need their votes counted.

I used to find LSB extremely useful, in ways that Flatpaks, Docker and the like 
are not. This is because I don't produce applications, but libraries, intended 
to be used in-process by applications. They are closed source, distributed in 
binary form. 

However, LSB ceased to be useful to me, because it has never been updated to 
support C++ versions later than C++03. I had to give it up when I needed to use 
C++11 code, and I'm now moving to C++20. In the interim, I've also started 
producing libraries on aarch64, which LSB has never supported. 

A lot of work would be needed to support current C++, and more ongoing effort 
would be needed to keep it updated as C++ develops. The C++ committee is 
producing a new standard every three years. Further, the work to update LSB is 
not much fun: it's largely careful analysis of the standards documents and 
record-keeping, with only a little coding. 

So an LSB 4.2 to "add some architectures and update to support C++11, C++14, 
C++17 and C++20" would be a very large amount of work. The Linux Foundation 
stopped funding LSB because there weren't many LSB-compliant pieces of software 
being produced, and they had better uses for their funds. 

Unless you can mobilise a group who will take on the work - and it's a *lot* of 
work - of maintaining and extending LSB, it's dead. It always had the problem 
that it was intended to enable the distribution of closed-source binary 
software that was portable across many distros, which isn't very motivating to 
many Linux people. Nowadays, binary compatibility between mainstream distros is 
easier, because they all update GCC and glibc regularly, and the development 
processes for both of those large projects are better-organised. 

With best regards,

-- 
John Dallman

Siemens Industry Software Limited
DI SW PE OT PC PDE
112 Hills Road
Cambridge CB2 1PH, United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (1223) 371554
mailto:john.dall...@siemens.com
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-----Original Message-----
From: lsb-discuss <lsb-discuss-boun...@lists.linux-foundation.org> On Behalf Of 
Lee Thomas Stephen
Sent: 17 February 2023 10:30
To: LSB Discuss <lsb-discuss@lists.linux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [lsb-discuss] Archive of this Mailing List

On Tue, Feb 7, 2023 at 10:53 PM Mats Wichmann <m...@wichmann.us> wrote:
>
> On 2/5/23 23:59, Lee Thomas Stephen wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > As asked in
> > https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fli
> > sts.linuxfoundation.org%2Fpipermail%2Flsb-discuss%2F2021-April%2F008
> > 275.html&data=05%7C01%7Cjohn.dallman%40siemens.com%7Cc9d5371cd75b40b
> > cb74008db10d2235a%7C38ae3bcd95794fd4addab42e1495d55a%7C1%7C0%7C63812
> > 2266952226228%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2
> > luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=wQpwSdvYp
> > IeV3T6F%2BiS4mrN3wUaEUIZ4a6woOSIvwoo%3D&reserved=0
> > The archives are at
> > https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fli
> > sts.linuxfoundation.org%2Fpipermail%2Flsb-discuss%2F&data=05%7C01%7C
> > john.dallman%40siemens.com%7Cc9d5371cd75b40bcb74008db10d2235a%7C38ae
> > 3bcd95794fd4addab42e1495d55a%7C1%7C0%7C638122266952382907%7CUnknown%
> > 7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLC
> > JXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=mV0WEHI8DgGSp%2FIYpScWrD7Ubgdsk3l
> > VlOdvT2DMfQo%3D&reserved=0
> >
> > I came to this mailing list due to this comment.
> > https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbu
> > gzilla.redhat.com%2Fshow_bug.cgi%3Fid%3D2118596%23c1&data=05%7C01%7C
> > john.dallman%40siemens.com%7Cc9d5371cd75b40bcb74008db10d2235a%7C38ae
> > 3bcd95794fd4addab42e1495d55a%7C1%7C0%7C638122266952382907%7CUnknown%
> > 7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLC
> > JXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=lx%2FIALDKPAuEeMWDcrTF0fxPQqmvFCh
> > %2FM5dtqeOddbo%3D&reserved=0 I do system administration work and 
> > needed LSB in RHEL for my work.
>
> Not sure if you were looking for a reaction...
>
> The LSB project is essentially abandoned - partially superseded by 
> other approaches to achieving application portability/stability that 
> are now in vogue (e.g. Snaps, Flatpaks, and to some extent Docker 
> containers)...
> not that surprised that Red Hat has phased out the packages, with the 
> non-availability of aarch64 support, something which LSB itself is 
> never going to get to doing; and indeed, the old versions of libraries 
> I'd agree are problematic.
>
> The single lsb_release command I find quite useful, but at this point 
> it's pretty much lying, as one of its reporting functions is to tell 
> which LSB modules are supported. There is a sample implementation if 
> you find the Fedora/RHEL one problematic to keep alive after they phase it 
> out:
>
> https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgith
> ub.com%2Flinuxstandardbase%2Flsb-samples&data=05%7C01%7Cjohn.dallman%4
> 0siemens.com%7Cc9d5371cd75b40bcb74008db10d2235a%7C38ae3bcd95794fd4adda
> b42e1495d55a%7C1%7C0%7C638122266952382907%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJW
> IjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%
> 7C%7C%7C&sdata=yWfc8joZsi45AENMKCUDsI1Aa7FyvDpq4Y3nqzQR8uA%3D&reserved
> =0
>
> No longer recall how functional it is.

Hi Mats,

Thanks for your reply.
I will check out lsb_release.

My two cents are below.
Flatpaks vs. Snaps and Docker vs. Podman are good.
However, there must be some standard rules in a democracy like Linux.
The Linux Foundation should take a step back and release a 4.2, as many 
distributions still have LSB 4.
The 4.2 release should improve architecture compatibility and add a few new 
features.
Then we can jump to an LSB 6 or something where more people have a say.
There are many new performers in the Linux arena after 2008, and they will need 
their votes counted.

Thanks for reading.

---
Lee
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