[lsb-discuss] revisiting LSB Desktop certification

Ian Murdock imurdock at imurdock.com
Mon Feb 5 05:28:34 PST 2007


Ok, it seems like we're trending toward consensus here.

Second question: What would the mechanics be, and what would we need to do
to the spec errata, software deliverables, etc.?

Initial thoughts:

Today, certified distros need to provide a single "lsb" package that pulls
in all dependencies. We don't want to change the semantics of the lsb
package in a point release to drop the desktop dependencies; so, my
inclination would be to (re)introduce the requirement to have "lsb-core",
"lsb-cxx" etc., require LSB certified apps to depend on those rather than
"lsb", and require LSB Desktop certified apps to depend on either "lsb"
or "lsb-desktop" (depending on whether "lsb-desktop" is as widespread
as the others--it does appear to be present on Debian/Ubuntu at least).

What the currently certified distros do is crucial here--rememeber,
we want the existing certified distros to automatically be LSB Desktop
certified, so they shouldn't have to make any changes to get there.

Assuming "lsb-desktop" is implemented in all the certified distros, we'll
presumably have a dependency list that looks something like this:

* LSB: lsb-core, lsb-cxx
* LSB Desktop: lsb-desktop

lsb-desktop should include on the old graphics elements. Technically, that
means LSB 3.1 Update 1 is not backward compatible with LSB 3.1 and LSB 3.0,
but practically, this should have no impact (we don't have existing
applications to break), and the ISVs in the room want us to do it this way.

In the event one or more currently certified distros don't have an
appropriate lsb-desktop package, the dependency list would be this:

* LSB: lsb-core, lsb-cxx
* LSB Desktop: lsb

Yes, that's a bit confusing, but it's better than the alternative
(requiring the currently certified distros to do an update).

Anything I'm missing?

Whichever way we go, we would either reintroduce the "lsb" dependency
or change its semantics in either LSB 3.2 or LSB 4.0.

-ian
-- 
Ian Murdock
317-863-2590
http://ianmurdock.com/

"Don't look back--something might be gaining on you." --Satchel Paige




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