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The Free Standards Group, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing and promoting open source software standards, announced the availability of the Linux Standard Base (LSB) 2.0, an essential component for the long-term market success of Linux. Important new features delivered in this release include the long-awaited inclusion of a new application binary interface (ABI) for C++ and support for 32- and 64-bit hardware architectures. The Free Standards Group also announced today that the standard has earned support from the majority of Linux distribution vendors throughout the world, marking a significant stage in the deployment of a true global standard for Linux. The LSB has garnered pledges of support from the majority of the Linux Community including AMD, Conectiva, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Mandrakesoft, Miracle Linux, Novell's SUSE LINUX, Progeny, Red Flag, Red Hat, Sun Wah Linux, Thizlinux, and Turbolinux. This groundswell of support is significant as it promises to keep Linux from forking and going the way of proprietary systems in the past. Because of the reduced costs for software vendors writing to the Linux, adoption of the LSB will also result in an increase in the number of applications written to the operating system. The Importance of the LSB The Linux Standard Base is developed and maintained by the Free Standards Group (FSG), a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing and promoting open source software standards. The LSB specification offers an answer to the most pressing issue facing Linux today: fragmentation. Industry leaders have rallied behind the standard and pledged their support to prevent this from happening. FSG has developed LSB along with a number of tools and test suites to facilitate the creation of a standard Linux. Distributions that comply with the LSB achieve interoperability with application software written to the standard. This is crucial for the on-going success for Linux as it simplifies the development and porting of applications by ISVs and guarantees end users will not get forced behind a closed operating platform. Most importantly, support for the LSB standard ensures Linux will not fork and will continue to be the fastest growing operating system in the industry. Application vendors will save millions of dollars by basing their applications on a clear set of standards. "IDC forecasted in 1997 that Linux would achieve mainstream status in all markets by the end of 2005," said Dan Kusnetzky, IDC's vice president of system software research. "It appears that this process is well underway now. Linux has already achieved this status in some markets. Multi-vendor, multi- platform, standards, such as the Linux Standards Base (LSB), are obviously a critical success factor if distributors, independent software suppliers and end-user organizations are going to continue to invest in Linux." "As a commercial open source software and support vendor we know that open standards form the basis for all open source success," said Mark Brewer, chief executive officer of Covalent. "Ensuring our distribution of Apache complies with the Linux Standard Base guarantees interoperability with all major Linux distributions. That keeps our porting costs down and gives our enterprise customer the freedom and flexibility they demand from open source." "If I, as a developer, have to port my application to two different distributions of Linux, that is one distribution too many," said Jon "Maddog" Hall, executive director of Linux International. "The way of assuring that every distribution has all the applications it needs to be successful is through specifying and applying a cross-distribution, cross-application, neutrally-determined standard. The LSB provides that specification. Without this, we are no better than the proprietary Unix systems of old." The Linux Standard Base specification contains a base set of APIs, libraries and interoperability standards. It also includes test suites, development environments, sample implementations and developer documentation. Version 2.0 Details The new version updates some of the basic specifications and implementations underlying LSB, such as adding support for Single Unix Specification 3.0. A significant new feature in LSB 2.0 is the introduction of a new application binary interface (ABI) for C++ to improve code interoperability. This is significant as most applications are currently written in C++. By including C++ support in the LSB, this gives thousands of software vendors the ability to port their applications to Linux in a cost- effective manner and thus will result in an increase in application choice for end users. LSB support has also been added for new hardware architectures including the IBM PowerPC 64, S390 and S390X platforms, and Advanced Micro Device's 64-bit Opteron chip. Intel 32-bit and 64-bit architectures are also supported. LSB 2.0 also includes test suites and a development environment, a sample implementation of a complete LSB-based distribution and developer documentation.