By John Leyden, VNU Net
A specification that would help Linux developers write
applications that they can be sure can be ported to all generally
available distributions of the operating system has been posted on
the web for public review.
A beta version of the Linux Development Platform Specification
(LDPS) will be subject to a review until the end of this week,
after which the Free Standards Group, whose contributors include
Linux creator Linus Torvalds, hopes to release a completed
specification.
After this time, the group recommends that independent software
vendors create binary versions of their applications using
distributions conforming to the LDPS.
In a statement on its website, the group said: “LDPS isn’t
intended to be a standard which tells distributions what to do.
Rather, it’s a recommendation to third-party developers about how
they can create binaries that are likeliest to be portable.”
A companion committee to the group, the Linux Standard Base, is
developing a complete standard for cross-distribution development
of applications that will supersede this interim specification. If
the superseding specification is not available by 31 December 2000,
the LDPS will be updated by that date.
Jon Collins, a senior analyst at Bloor Research, said standards
for portability between different Linux distributions are only part
of the story of encouraging application development.
“In order to entice corporates Linux needs a richer development
environment. Better modelling tools and configuration management is
needed,” said Collins.
In a separate move within the Linux development community,
Caldera today announced its Linux 2.4 Technology Developer Release
Preview will ship on 31 July. The preview release enables early
software development with a beta version of the new Linux 2.4
kernel, Sun Microsystems’ Java Hotspot and Server Virtual Machines
technology, as well as a beta preview of Java 2 platform for Linux
version 1.3.
The latest C/C++ Linux and other website development tools are
also included in the release.
The LDPS is located at: http://www.freestandards.org/ldps/