LSB summit

[James Richard Tyrer]

Thiago Macieira wrote:
> James Richard Tyrer wrote:
<SNIP>
> Menus aren't part of the LSB, therefore you're not allowed to have 
> them in LSB-compliant packages.

And it is such total disconnects that result in people thinking that the
LSB is useless.

<SNIP>
>> You missed my point.  Some RPMs list dependencies on other RPM 
>> packages not on the actual names of the libraries needed.  This 
>> makes them less than usable on other distros.
> 
> I'm sorry, you're missing the point here: LSB RPMs do not list 
> library dependencies at all. They list the LSB standard version they
>  are compliant to and that's all. The system is supposed to have all
>  the LSB libraries installed, with the correct sonames and the
> correct symbols, with need to change anything in the dynamic loader's
>  configuration.

This appears to me to be totally unrealistic.  Linux is about the 
ability to constantly upgrade the system and this would put an end to that.

> There's no such thing as "minimum required version". For instance, Qt
>  4.1 was standardised in LSB 3.1 Desktop -- that means its symbols 
> and its behaviour was standardised. Any other library or version 
> matching those requirements is considered LSB-compliant.

This makes one wonder about the binary incompatibilities in GNOME 2.14. 
  How does the LSB deal with this?  Specifically: GLib 2.8.x vs. 2.10.x 
and GTK+ 2.8.13 vs >= 2.8.14.  Is this an issue, or did GNOME just make 
a big mistake that they need to correct?

>> It isn't the libraries that are really the issues since that can be
>>  addressed by installation systems (if actual library names are 
>> used). It is the fact that different distros have different 
>> directory tree layouts and install stuff in different locations 
>> (and it isn't just whether or not they use "opt").  This is the 
>> fragmentation problem.
> 
> As I said above, the LSB libraries are found by the LSB dynamic 
> loader. Applications do not have to worry about them.

"It isn't the libraries that are really the issues ..."

There are files other than libraries that apps need to access. 
Different directory tree arrangements do cause problems when trying to 
make a binary package run on all RPM based distros.

-- 
JRT