Linux Core Consortium

The Linux Core Consortium would like to have Debian's involvement. This 
organization has revived what I originally proposed to do as the LSB - 
to make a binary base for Linux distributions that could be among 
several distributions who would share in the effort of maintaining 
certain packages. Ian Murdock, the creator of Debian, is one of the 
leaders of the effort.

I think there are several important reasons for us to be involved. The 
first is that we should be influencing this group to do things the 
Debian way, where that is important. The second is that the group plans 
to lower the overhead of hardware and application vendor certification 
for all of its participants, and we could really use that sort of 
support. The third is that the group would make certification by LSB and 
other standards bodies easier for all of the participants.

What changes would be necessary for Debian? The group can really be 
viewed as a sort of upstream maintainer for a number of packages, so it 
fits pretty well in the context that we're used to in working with the 
sources of our software. LCC will be working with the people who 
currently are the upstream maintainers for those packages, so we would 
probably see LCC changes to lots of packages whether we want them or 
not. Better to have influence on them while they are happening.

The main technical effect that I see would be that the names of some 
dynamic libraries would change. And compatibility with the old names 
could be maintained indefinitely if necessary.

I would not suggest that Debian commit to using LCC packages at this 
time. We should participate for a while and see how many changes we'd 
have to make and whether the project works for us. But I think we should 
be at the table and in a position to influence the project. The other 
members are willing to have us on those terms.

    Thanks

    Bruce