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The Free Standards Group on Tuesday will announce that two more Linux distributions—The SCO Groups Caldera OpenLinux 3.1.1 and MandrakeSoft S.A.s Mandrake Linux ProSuite 9.0—have achieved Linux Standard Base (LSB) certification.
LSB certification verifies adherence to the standard, developed by the community and industry, for both Linux distributions and Linux-based applications.
This follows the certification of distributions from The SCO Group (formerly Caldera International Inc.), MandrakeSoft S.A., Red Hat Inc. and SuSE Linux AG in August.
While a total of seven distributions from four companies are now LSB certified, Scott McNeil, executive director of the Free Standards Group, declined to say how many additional certifications are pending, citing the confidentiality of the process.
When asked what, if anything, the Free Standards Group could do about those vendors that did not want their distributions certified—thereby resulting in fragmentation and incompatible versions—McNeil said this was their choice.
“But given that a number of top IT customers are insisting that they deploy only LSB certified or compliant distributions and applications , it seems that market pressure will eventually persuade them. The fact that companies continue to apply for LSB certification demonstrates how important standards are to the continued growth of the Linux market,” he told eWEEK.
Darl McBride, CEO and president of The SCO Group, said he was dedicated to the development and promotion of standards. “We see standards adherence as central to the growth and progression of the Linux industry and are committed to again being LSB certified when we release SCO Linux, powered by UnitedLinux this fall.”
MandrakeSoft last week announced the release of Mandrake Linux 9.0, its latest Linux operating system for servers and desktop workstations. The OS includes KDE 3.0.3, GNOME 2.0.1, OpenOffice 1.0.1 and Mozilla 1.1.
“Mandrake Linux 8.2 was the first Linux distribution to become certified by the Linux Standard Base (LSB 1.2). We implement LSB compatibility in Mandrake Linux 9.0 as an option during the installation.
“This important standard ensures that Mandrake Linux will be compatible with a greater number of leading enterprise-class applications, such as Database, CRM and accounting,” said Jacques Le Marois, CEO and co-founder of MandrakeSoft S.A. “We strongly believe that the Linux Standard Base is a standard that is going to be massively supported by the computing industry in the near future,” he said.
The LSB Certification program was initially launched at LinuxWorld in New York in late January. At that time, the FSG released the Linux Standards Base 1.1, which provided a full set of standards allowing Linux distributions and developers of Linux applications to work together seamlessly.
The group also released the Linux Internationalization Initiative (Li18nux), an internationalization guide for platform and application developers. The FSG administers the LSB and Li18nux.