Question About Becoming LSB Certified..?!

[Wichmann, Mats D]

>To Whom It May Concern,

>I have a question about becoming LSB certified.  
>My group, which is working on a LSB-compliant 
>distro would like it to be LSB certified, but we 
>do NOT have that kind of money -- actually we 
>have no money at all -- to pay for 
>certification...so how can we become certified 
>if you want the little guys to comply with the 
>LSB, when only companies can seem to pay your 
>price for certification.  This is a valid point 
>I am making and would like to see this question 
>answered?!

The certification program costs money because it
is quite formal and incurs costs to operate.
The FSG does not have the expertise to operate such
a program, so the administration of the program is
outsourced to a company experienced in conducting 
robust certification programs. To quote from the
press release of yesterday:

  "Certification is not a profit center for the Free 
  Standards Group," said George Kraft IV, LSB Workgroup 
  Chair. "It was designed to give users and developers 
  the highest confidence that whatever LSB Certified 
  Linux distribution or program they work with meets 
  the highest possible adherence to the standard."

There is nothing to stop you from claiming
LSB conformance and providing the test results
to back up that claim, and we fully expect
that there are people who will wish to do this.
This should provide all of the technical benefits,
as you would be LSB conforming and can run LSB
applications. However in this scenario you would 
not be able to use the FSG's "LSB Certified" brand.

In the end you will have to weight the benefits
of being able to disply the certification brand
vs. the costs of obtaining it.