On Fri, Jan 10, 2003 at 07:02:04PM -0000, Ricardo Campos typed the following...
In compiling my report about Linux for uni, I have merely skirted around the topic of LSB. I notice, for example, that there are only a few distros that have LSB compliance.
I guess that the LSB is a good idea (in theory), since Linux has gone the way UNIX did by diversifying (perhaps too much)... Does anyone have any thoughts on this? It seems, also, that compliance means that RPM needs to be used? (That's insane IMHO, but I haven't tried APT-RPM).
Any thoughts oh wise ones? ;)
...and that's all Ricardo Campos wrote I'm afraid
Aaaarrrrgggghhhh, I replied to this and forgot to make sure that it was copied to the list as well - I wish there could be some standardisation here! Some lists you just reply, some you need group reply and a very few actually have the headers for a special list reply - I've read both the arguments on reply-to munging, and although I'm not completely decided I think I prefere to be able to reply to the list rather than group reply (most of the time you reply to the list, and if a thread gets too long you end up with a really long copy list if its not trimmed, and I also get fed up with getting two copies of replies to my own posts). Anyway, I've probably started a whole new sub-thread here - my real reply is below...
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I like the idea of standardising the directory structures so that you know where to find things when you switch distributions - that certainly shouldn't be the way a distro different. The package management side of things I'm not so sure about, but I'm not 100% sure of my motives here. I can see the attraction of having a common package format that will install across all distributions, but...
I can see why RPM was chosen as the standard on the practical side of things (i.e. its used on a wide range of distros), but on the technical side I really couldn't bring myself to go back to using it having use the Debian system. I don't really care if RPM is available, so long as it doesn't take over and can remain an irrelevance to me :-)
Personally I think that with things like package management there is room for a little choice, and the LSB could devine a couple of alternatives. We can manage with different standard for other applications, video and audio formats, etc., so as long as there aren't too many I would say that choice was a good thing - there's a balance to be had between the 'one size fits all' Windows way, and having so many choices.
Just my 2p's worth anyway.