Re: Definition of "product" for the purposes of the LSB

Doug Beattie wrote:
> When I read this, (and granted I have not taken a lot of time to think
> about it), I had questions pop into my mind about if the third party
> could really certify the product and be expected to stand behind it.
> If one looks at this from a legal support viewpoint, if the third party
> had to rely on things not changing under them by those supplying the
> original distribution, could they or should they be held accountable.
> Certification currently requires the party that does the certification
> stand behind their runtime environment and fix problems if and when
> they are encountered. It seems this could have the pontential of
> creating a lot more problems to police.

Perhaps this could be remedied with some form of update committment. 
When the underlying distribution changes, the third party would consider 
that a maintenance update and release updated supplemental media.

If the product were defined as "the FooBar Linux version 5.0 release 3 
plus the FooBar LSB supplement", it's possible that one could avoid the 
issues regarding upstream updates as well; FooBar could release version 
5.0 release 4, but we would continue distributing r3 with our 
supplemental CD (for a time, at any rate).

> I'm not saying one way or another how I will end up deciding on this
> question, just that there should be some careful thought go into its
> consideration.

Yes, which is why I'm asking ahead of time for advice.  Obviously, a 
complete fork would be safer; it would also be a considerably greater 
amount of work, which is why the "supplemental media" option appeals to 
me.  But if the supplement isn't acceptable, then it's pointless to 
waste time on it.