Linux Standards Base wins more support

A clutch of independent software vendors (ISVs) have agreed to support Linux Standards Base (LSB), a set of standards that is meant to improve compatibility between Linux distributions.

The Free Standards Group said on Monday that more than a dozen additional companies have agreed to support LSB. These companies include storage vendor Veritas, database vendor MySQL and management software vendor Levanta, who all write software that runs on Linux.

Last year a number of Linux vendors agreed to support LSB and some, including Red Hat, SuSE and Mandrakesoft, have already released products that are compatible with LSB.

Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Free Standards Group, said that LSB allows ISVs to cut the costs of writing software for Linux, as they only need to write a single version that will run on any LSB-compliant Linux distribution.

"These forward-thinking ISVs have realised their support for the Linux Standard Base will reduce their development and testing costs and provide more choice to their end users," said Zemlin in a statement.

Akmal Khan, the president of Levanta, agreed that LSB is vital to keep costs low.

"The Linux Standard Base is an extremely important open source initiative," said Khan. "It will help us keep our porting and testing expenses low and gain competitive advantage over other non-LSB-certified applications. We look forward to certifying to the standard and continuing to support the LSB."

To be effective, LSB will need to attract widespread support. Click here to read a discussion of the issues around Linux Standards Base.