The goal of the Linux Standard Base (LSB) is to develop and promote a set of standards that will increase compatibility among Linux distributions and enable software applications to run on any compliant Linux system. In July the 1.2 version of the Linux Standard Base specification is to be released and the the certification program associated with it will begin. This program will initially cover the certification of runtime environments and applications designed to be run on LSB compliant runtimes.

This talk will cover what is involved in building an LSB compliant application. It will start by covering the specifications referred to by the LSB specification, which developers should be aware of.

To make it easier to build a compliant application, LSB build environments are in development. There are currently two tools, lsbcc and lsbdev available. They take different approaches to building an application and the best one to use depends on the existing build infrastructure and the complexity of the application.

Test suites have been developed to test conformance of applications to the specification. The talk will cover what developers can expect the test programs to detect, and what is not covered. The Linux Standard Base organisation has also been developing sample implementations of the specification. The sample implementations attempt to provide a runtime environment which fulfills all the requirements of the specification with a minimum of extra functionality. In addition to acting as an example to people developing LSB runtimes the sample implementation is also useful as a testing ground for application developers. It can be used to help verify that they are not dependent on features outside of the specification.

The talk will also briefly describe what is required to obtain and maintain formal LSB certification for an application.

Christopher Yeoh is an employee of the IBM Linux Technology Center, working at OzLabs in Canberra, Australia. For the last couple of years he has be en working on various aspects of the Linux Standard Base ranging from specification writing to test suite development. He is the technical lead for the LSB build environment.