[gentoo-dev] Linux Standard Base Project

[gentoo-dev] Linux Standard Base Project

[Paweł Madej]

Hello,

I've found a news that LSB Release3 [1] was announced. So there is my 
question. Are Gentoo Foundation and Gentoo Developers developing Gentoo 
Linux in coordinance with standards provided by this specification?

Could someone give me reasons why yes or no?

Greets
Pawel
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Linux Standard Base Project

[Patrick Kursawe]

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On Fri, Sep 23, 2005 at 06:22:43PM +0200, Pawe? Madej wrote:
> I've found a news that LSB Release3 [1] was announced. So there is my 
> question. Are Gentoo Foundation and Gentoo Developers developing Gentoo 
> Linux in coordinance with standards provided by this specification?
> 
> Could someone give me reasons why yes or no?

Just two quick thoughts:
- We don't use and don't want to use RPM as our package manager.
- We don't use and don't want to use the init script system they use.

Bye, Patrick

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Linux Standard Base Project

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 18:22:43 +0200 Paweł Madej <linux@quanteam.info>
wrote:
| I've found a news that LSB Release3 [1] was announced. So there is my 
| question. Are Gentoo Foundation and Gentoo Developers developing
| Gentoo Linux in coordinance with standards provided by this
| specification?

Nope. There's no interest in LSB compliance. LSB isn't a real standard,
it's some nonsense dreamed up so that companies like Sun can claim that
they are "Linux compliant" (meaning "behaves like RedHat").

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Vim, Shell tools, Fluxbox, Cron)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Linux Standard Base Project

[Mike Frysinger]

On Friday 23 September 2005 12:22 pm, Paweł Madej wrote:
> I've found a news that LSB Release3 [1] was announced. So there is my
> question. Are Gentoo Foundation and Gentoo Developers developing Gentoo
> Linux in coordinance with standards provided by this specification?

this has come up before on gentoo-dev (was a while back though, dunno if 
gmane.org would have it in its archives) ...

we have very little interest in the LSB thus there are no plans at all to 
support it

we do aim for FHS compliance when it isnt out of our way
-mike

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[gentoo-dev] Re: Linux Standard Base Project

[Duncan]

Paweł Madej posted <43342BD3.8000004@quanteam.info>, excerpted below,  on
Fri, 23 Sep 2005 18:22:43 +0200:

> Hello,
> 
> I've found a news that LSB Release3 [1] was announced. So there is my 
> question. Are Gentoo Foundation and Gentoo Developers developing Gentoo 
> Linux in coordinance with standards provided by this specification?
> 
> Could someone give me reasons why yes or no?

Note that I'm simply a user and in no way speak officially for Gentoo. 
However, this issue has been of interest to me, so I've some observations
on the Gentoo/LSB interaction.  Hopefully, however, my reply will save
some developer from having to compose one, meaning they can spend the time
on doing stuff I don't have the skills for, all those new ebuilds! =8^)

No, Gentoo is not, basically because much of the standard only makes sense
for binary distributions, not from-source (meta)distributions like Gentoo,
and/or for all-at-once release upgrades, not incrementally upgraded as it
comes out distributions like Gentoo.  Additionally, normal all-at-once
releases only have one version of things like KDE installed at a time,
where Gentoo slots them, so multiple versions may be installed at the same
time without conflicting (very much) with each other.  The LSB makes
little if any allowance for this sort of thing.

Keep in mind that the LSB is really targeted at binary-only products,
regardless of what distribution the product is to be run on. If it's
available under an open source license, then a distribution can distribute
it and manage support of any changes it has to make.  Those who refuse to
open their source thus face the problem of supporting all the diverse
distributions out there, where the distributions would be providing
support for at least the differing stuff themselves, if they were given
the chance with open source.  Thus, it's those closed source vendors who
tend to support stuff like the LSB the strongest.  (I must say that IMO
Gentoo does pretty good with even closed source, tho, considering the
number of ebuilds available and supported, to aid in the installation of
closed source apps. =8^)

All that said, as for any distribution, the closer Gentoo can be to normal
FHS locations and the like, the closer it keeps to assumptions made by
even open source developers about stuff like lib64 vs lib vs lib32 on
hardware that handles dual bitness (like amd64, my arch, therefore my
interest in the subject), for instance, the less changes Gentoo devs must
make to even open source apps, as compared to upstream. Thus, it makes
sense for Gentoo to maintain compatibility where it doesn't conflict too
strongly with other Gentoo goals or policies, since being different means
more work than abiding by the standard. Gentoo can be and is different
where it makes sense to be based on what Gentoo /is/, but it tends to
follow pretty closely the defined standards where there's no strong reason
/not/ to do so, because it just makes life simpler that way.

What this all means in brief is that Gentoo in general abides by the
LSB/FHS where doing so doesn't come in conflict with Gentoo's own
priorities.  Assuming Gentoo users are comfortable with Gentoo and its
priorities or they'd be using a different distribution, it will follow
that most of them will also be comfortable with how Gentoo treats the LSB,
because to treat it differently would mean compromising part of the
priorities that help make Gentoo what it is.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Linux Standard Base Project

[Donnie Berkholz]

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Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
| Nope. There's no interest in LSB compliance. LSB isn't a real standard,
| it's some nonsense dreamed up so that companies like Sun can claim that
| they are "Linux compliant" (meaning "behaves like RedHat").

Of course you'll want to read Ulrich Drepper's rant [1] (Red Hat guy) on
why the LSB sucks. I found it from the LWN announcement of LSB 3.0.

Thanks,
Donnie

1. http://www.livejournal.com/users/udrepper/8511.html
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Linux Standard Base Project

[Paweł Madej]

Thank you All for answers, I have now clear look for that thing which 
was new to me. I use linux for about 1,5 year so many of things are unknown.

Greets
Pawel
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Linux Standard Base Project

[Mats Hellman]

On Fri, 23 Sep 2005, Patrick Kursawe wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 23, 2005 at 06:22:43PM +0200, Pawe? Madej wrote:
>> I've found a news that LSB Release3 [1] was announced. So there is my
>> question. Are Gentoo Foundation and Gentoo Developers developing Gentoo
>> Linux in coordinance with standards provided by this specification?
>>
>> Could someone give me reasons why yes or no?
>
> Just two quick thoughts:
> - We don't use and don't want to use RPM as our package manager.

Thank god, I'm still having nightmares because of the April fools joke a 
few years back.

> - We don't use and don't want to use the init script system they use.

One of the first things I noticed about Gentoo back in 2003 when I 
started using it was the scripts. I allways liked the way they were setup 
in Gentoo.

>
> Bye, Patrick
>
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