On Wed, 5 Apr 2000, Ralf Flaxa wrote: > You will see the fruits of it soon, so if you want to help then do rather > play the advocate for it than questioning it publically.
If I want to question it publicly, I have many vehicles to do so that are more public than this list. I say these things here and *not* publicly in the interest of helping the LSB process. > I appreciate your input and comments, but I feel they have an > "undertone" of pessimism. No pessimism is intended. I believe strongly in the value of the LSB and hope it will be widely adopted, as I have from the day the LSB was created. I understand that it is heavily supported, as it should be, by every distribution, and I expect that most distributions will ensure that LSB compliance is highly publicized. I'm merely stating what I see in my observations of the landscape. Many developers are bringing apps to Linux without waiting for the LSB, so they must already target one or more "standard" platforms (sometimes refusing to support others). The worst example of that was retail boxes on store shelves I saw that boldly said "CodeWarrior for Red Hat", but I have seen others too. It appears at this point that (most) ISVs who are developing apps for Linux (who don't do strategic relationships with distros) are, by default, doing versions for Red Hat, maybe one or two others, and hoping it'll work on the rest. Even in the free software world (in download areas such as 'rpmfind'), when binary packages exist for free software, more often than not they're Red Hat RPMs If this trend continues, and has the opportunity to get ingrained as "the way to do things", then a defacto standard will emerge with which the LSB will have to compete (especially if Red Hat is not as aggressive at promoting LSB as the other distros). This is not stated as a threat or prediction of doom -- just two main points: 1) Even if LSB did not exist, a standard would emerge for ISVs making apps for Linux, but it would emerge by unplanned attrition rather than consensus. Such a standard would likely target a front-runner platform and force everyone else to maintain compatibility. The absense of LSB would not prevent a such defacto standard from occuring anyway, but it would take a form that most distribution vendors (everyone except the front-runner, actually) will not find appealing. 2) There *is* a time issue at hand. In the absense of LSB, ISVs are already being forced to create an ad-hoc "standard" of their own. The longer LSB takes to arrive, the harder it will be to overcome the inertia of what the ISVs will have already done. - Evan
