<html><body> <tt> > Regardless, if they *aren't* seen as the same operating system, then we > are all basically screwed w.r.t non open source software, as the desktop > market is much more fragmented than the server market - you can't just > say "We support RHEL X and SLES Y" and be done with it, not unless you > want to alienate a large number of potential customers. None of the > existing desktop distros have a market share high enough to justify > ports or new development, whereas in a few cases the market share of > "Linux" is getting high enough.</tt> <tt>They are not the same, because I cannot go into CompUSA to buy a GNU/Linux application then take it home and just install it.   What would be the system requirements?  Ideally it would say "requires LSB v3.0 Desktop or higher" instead of listing thirty (or just two) different supported GNU/Linux distribution releases. </tt> <tt><a href="http://lsbbook.gforge.freestandards.org/foreward.html">http://lsbbook.gforge.freestandards.org/foreward.html</a></tt> <tt>Going through the evolutionary thought process of this problem is what has brought dozens of developers (and the distributions) to support the LSB.  The solution is at hand.  What is needed is resources & time within the LSB and architecture/specification teams (ie., xdg) of the open source community to expand the scope of the GNU/Linux definition.  :-)</tt> <tt>Best regards,</tt> <tt> George (gk4) </tt> <tt>PS: To spare the list, this will be my last post regarding the virtues of an ABI via the LSB.  :-)  I would be glad to discuss further offline.</tt> </body></html>