RMS and LSB [LWN.net]

RMS and LSB

Posted Aug 6, 2004 1:23 UTC (Fri) by KotH (subscriber, #4660)
In reply to: RMS and LSB by angdraug
Parent article: LSB 2.0 and C++

Well, standardization makes writing proprietary software much easier, but you have to also agree that it is a pain to write portable software, even if you just want to support all linux distributions. I actualy miss the times when a simple Makefile with a few constants at the top was enough to compile something. No mess with autoconf/automake/libtool. LSB is for me a step into the direction of enabling simple sofware to work again with simple Makefiles w/o the need to learn the autotools or to handcraft a configure script.

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LSB and portable software

Posted Aug 6, 2004 8:15 UTC (Fri) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link]

it is a pain to write portable software

True. But no amount of standardization will make all the ancient incompatible systems suddenly go away. If you want your application to be portable without fancy autotools scripts, your only option is (and will be) to use Ruby, Python, or another scripting language, and let the language developers deal with the portability thing.

LSB is for me a step into the direction of enabling simple sofware to work again with simple Makefiles w/o the need to learn the autotools or to handcraft a configure script.

Quoting "Introduction" to LSB 1.3:

The Linux Standard Base (LSB) defines a system interface for compiled applications and a minimal environment for support of installation scripts (emphasys mine).

You see, LSB is not about source code, it is about binary software.