Re: Debian LSB compliance

Didier 'OdyX' Raboud <[email protected]> Wed, 08 Jul 2015 08:10:03 +0200
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.general,gmane.linux.debian.devel.lsb
Organization	Debian - The Universal OS
Message-ID	<4682310.7LIWdV4Lar@gyllingar>
Le vendredi, 3 juillet 2015, 13.20:08 Mats Wichmann a écrit :
> On 07/03/15 07:28, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud wrote:
> > The crux of the issue is, I think, whether this whole game is worth
> > the work: I am yet to hear about software distribution happening
> > through LSB packages [4]. There are only _8_ applications by 6
> > companies on the LSB certified applications list [5], of which only
> > one is against LSB >= 4. Amongst the distributions, RHEL 7.0 is
> > LSB4.1, and Oracle 6, RHEL 6.0 and Ubuntu 9.04 are LSB 4.
> > 
> > As a data point, I've just noticed that the Linux Foundation issued
> > LSB 5.0 and FHS 3.0 [6] just yesterday. But that doesn't change the
> > arguments, I think.
> 
> The current distribution checker is actually quite easy to set up,
> it's just a package to install and off you go, answer a few questions
> through a web interface. Should you have the patience to fire off 10+
> hours of tests and then want to look at them. You would need that for
> "compliance" which has never directly been a Debian goal, as you say.

Fair enough, but then what?

Let's assume we test 'stretch', our next stable release.

Case a) Tests show that it is compliant so far, and by some magic 
trickery, this stays true until release day. In this case, we should 
apply for full certification, and use that as an "sales" argument.

Case b) Tests show that it isn't: some problems might point to 
meaningful changes, but some others might not be fixable? We'd be non-
compliant, and all that work would be a wasted effort.

From what I understand (given the timescales), changing the LSB to be 
"whatever Debian as well as all other actors in the FLOSS world are 
_actually_ doing" is a painful, long and boring process, that the people 
involved in the LSB processes are only very slowly doing by themselves 
(no offense intended).

The packages we currently have were built for LSB4.1, and the LSB5.0 
just went out. Are there people out there interested in making the LSB 
relevant through certifying Debian 'stretch' for LSB5 [0]? Let's face 
it: given the current importance of Debian in the distributions' 
ecosystem, our decision with regards to becoming LSB5 certified (or not) 
could be decisive: if we commit to it, and establish efficient 
communication channels to push for LSB changes (eventually leading to a 
LSB5.1 == Debian strectch), then this /could/ make LSB5 somewhat more 
relevant than it ever was.

If we don't, and instead outright "give up" on LSB support, then this 
might very well be a further nail in the LSB coffin.

Given
a) the work that certifying Debian would take;
b) the interest in having Debian be certified (I am yet to see any of 
that interest);
c) the marginal interest by application vendors for the LSB;

… I'm leaning towards outright giving up.

Of course, I could simply orphan src:lsb and be done with it, but I feel 
we'd be much better off with a src:lsb package that either does, or 
doesn't at all provide LSB5 certification: the middle ground that we've 
stayed in is helping neither Debian or LSB.

So, are there any volunteers to make Debian LSB-certified? I'm likely to 
work on src:lsb during DebConf, so please make yourself known before 
then!

Cheers,
OdyX
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