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 next version of the specification offers an answer to the most pressing issue facing Linux today: fragmentation. A large assortment of industry leaders have pledged their support to the new standard and the Free Standards Group to prevent this from happening. The Standard is supported by major players in the Linux Community including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, AMD, Dell, Intel, Turbolinux, Progeny, Red Hat, Sun, Novells SUSE LINUX, and Conectiva, as well as Mandrakesoft. The FSG has developed LSB along with a number of tools and test suites to facilitate the creation of a standard Linux.

Francois Bancilhon, Mandrakesoft CEO said, "We are pleased to offer our support to the Linux Standard Base and the Free Standards Group. Given the dire consequences of fragmentation, the standards are a key ingredient to the success of Linux. By supporting the LSB, Mandrakesoft assures its customers that its value-added version of Linux will interoperate with their computing infrastructure and will continue to be open and standards-based. In addition to supporting the efforts of LSB in certifying runtime environments, Mandrakelinux 10.1 will assist ISVs in building LSB certified applications."

"We are pleased to see the support for the LSB from Mandrakesoft," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Free Standards Group. "Their participation is crucial to the standards and ultimately Linuxs success. We applaud their proactive vision and their actions to safeguard the openness and interoperability of Linux."

The Linux Standard Base specification contains a base set of Application Binary Interfaces (ABIs), libraries and interoperability standards. It also includes test suites, development environments, sample implementations and developer documentation. More information on the standard can be found on the FSGs Web site and in a press release announcing the specification issued at LinuxWorld.

LSB 2.0 features the revision of the core specification to support modules that are built on the foundation of the core LSB. This will accommodate future growth, as Linux standards for different vertical markets, for example, are developed as extensions to the core LSB. LSB 2.0 also introduces an ABI for C++ -- a long-awaited feature. The LSB 2.0 also incorporates updates to many of the specifications and implementations underlying the LSB, such as the Single Unix Specification.

Finally, LSB 2.0 introduces support for new architectures, including PPC64 and AMD64. Other CPU architectures supported by LSB 2.0 include IA32 and IA64 architectures, as well as PPC32, S390 and S390X.

In addition to providing a written specification, LSB 2.0 includes a wide range of tools for Linux, such as test suites, a development environment, a sample implementation and developer documentation.

About the Free Standards Group

The Free Standards Group is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the use and acceptance of free and open source software by developing and promoting standards. Key Free Standards Group projects include the Linux Standard Base (LSB), OpenI18N, LANANA and the new Accessibility Workgroup. Supported by leaders in the IT industry as well as the open source development community, the Free Standards Group fulfills a critical need to have common behavioral specifications, tools and ABIs across Linux platforms. More information on the Free Standards Group is available at www.freestandards.org .

About Mandrakesoft

Mandrakesoft is the publisher of the popular Mandrakelinux operating system, one of the most fully-featured and easy to use Linux systems available. The company offers its enterprise, government and educational customers a complete range of GNU/Linux and Open Source software and related services. Mandrakesoft products are available in more than 120 countries through dedicated channels and also from Mandrakestore.com, the company's online store. Number 1 in several countries, Mandrakesoft has won many awards for quality and technical innovation. "Born on the Internet" in late 1998, Mandrakesoft has offices in the United States and France. Mandrakesoft is traded on Paris Euronext Marche Libre (ISIN Code: FR0004159382/MLMAN; Reuters code: MAKE.PA) and the US OTC market (stock symbol MDKFF).
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