Next week, the curtains rise and the new Debian Alliance will take the stage to challenge Red Hat and Novell for Linux supremacy.More details are leaking out about the Debian Core Consortium, which will be announced at next weeks LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco.
First, the group will not be named DCC (Debian Core Consortium) after all.
The public relations manager of desktop Linux vendor Linspire Inc., Heather MacKenzie, revealed that the "the DCCs official name is the Debian Common Core Alliance."
The DCCA (Debian Common Core Alliance) is an apt name. Sources within the Alliance said that "there will be a single set of packages, bit-identical to Debian Sarge in most if not all cases, that the participating distributions will share."
"So, there will be a tangible Debian Common Core that you can download, that you can base a distribution on, and that you can certify to if you are an ISV[independent software vendor] or an IHV [independent hardware vendor]."
Some members of the alliance had hoped for more.
One said he feared that "The DCC is turning into an open-source project." He said he had hoped for the DCC to be more like the late UnitedLinux, with its single common server distribution.
Click here to read more about the end of UnitedLinux.
Still, you could, according to one insider, use such existing Debian-based distributions as Progeny Linux System Inc.s Componentized Linux.
"In terms of what those packages are specifically, the Componentized Linux Core has one definition of core that we are taking into account as we build the DCC, but its certainly not the only one. Naturally, well be adapting the CL Core to reflect the groups definition of core once weve reached consensus on that," he said.
Conversations will continue at LinuxWorld on the DCCAs Core technical specifications.
The Core will, in addition, to Debian Sarge, be built on LSB (Linux Standard Base) 3.0.
Read more here about Linux Standard Base.
Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Free Standards Group, the organization behind the LSB, will be speaking at the DCCAs launch Tuesday at LinuxWorld.
The DCCA membership list has firmed up.
DCCAs membership will be made up of credativ GmbH (site in German), Knoppix, LinEx (site in Spanish), Linspire, MEPIS LLC, Progeny Linux Systems Inc., Sun Wah Linux Ltd., UserLinux, and Xandros Inc.
Two companies, Skolelinux and VA Linux Systems Japan, which were involved early on, have elected not to join the group.
Shuji Sado, VA Linux Japans VP of marketing, said, "In fact, VA Linux has decided not to join the consortium at this time."
The single largest player in the Debian Linux universe that wont be working with the alliance will be Ubuntu.
DCCA sources said that the Ubuntu Foundation and co-founder Mark Shuttleworth were approached about joining the Alliance, but the group expressed no interest in joining.
One DCCA supporter was upset by Shuttleworths decision. "Rather than sit on the sidelines criticizing Debian, he should join with the others in the DCC alliance and help support and move Debian to a good place."
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