Re: Questions To Answer

[Alan Cox <alan lxorguk ukuu org uk>]

> "Without standards Linux is dead, defunct, gone and a waste of coding
> time."  A lot of people used to say that. I haven't seen it
> happen. Sure LSB is in the process of making some standards now, but

We have a lot of standards. 

> vendors have been doing OK without them. Hell, Linux doesn't even
> follow all the POSIX standards fully (e.g. threads), and many vendors
> don't actually follow FHS, one of the few Linux-specific standards
> that has been around for a while.

Right now one of the biggest reasons vendors are giving for not supporting
Linux is ABI standards. They are less worried about pthreads not being
perfect - if you know the limits then you can work with it easily

A lot of the LSB work is driven by ISV's. Without the LSB several vendors
on the Linux bandwagon today would probably not be there.

> It should address these issues. However, I see addressing those issues
> as subordinate to the goal of creating a free desktop. I also
> 
> Anyway, this is a matter of perspective to some degree. I definitely
> agree that at some point, making standards will be an important part
> of organizing the development of GNOME - but I definitely do not agree
> that the coding is secondary to the standards.

Coding is subordinate to the API's. We spent much of the 1.2->2.2 Linux
kernel timeline learning that one. If the API is right you can fix the code
later, if the API is wrong boy are you deep in it.

Thats not to demean the code. Nobody would pretend Bonobo by work is 99%
the API and 1% knocking off code. In the long term its the APIs that have
to stand. You can rewrite code

Alan