Software vendors call for Linux desktop standards

What's next for Linux? As Linux continues to gain traction as a viable desktop alternative--both in the home and the enterprise--some form of desktop standardization will likely be needed. But how to bring order out of chaos? That was the question on the table this past week, at the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) Desktop Architects Meeting in Portland, OR. Around 45 Linux developers, including major vendors like Novell and Red Hat, showed up to discuss how best to bring stability and consistency to the Linux interface. The biggest proponents of standardization at the conference weren't necessarily the developers--independent software vendors like Google and Adobe attended as well and called for a standardized desktop on behalf of software developers. "Application vendors, especially those like Google that distribute their software through the Web, and not necessarily bundled with a distribution, want to be able to count on any [distribution] continuing to keep and not depreciate or eliminate software libraries," said John Cherry, OSDL's Desktop Linux initiative manager. "They want to be able to count on libraries being there so that they don't need to release a slightly different version for each distribution or each dot upgrade of a distribution."

For more on Linux desktop standardization:
- see this eWeek article