To: lwn@eklektix.com
Subject: Core/Layers announcement
Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 15:30:22 -0700
From: Erik Walthinsen <omega@omegacs.net>

The Core/Layers spec, which you've probably heard some about if you watch
slashdot.org, is ready to be publicly announced.  You can find our current
draft at http://www.seul.org/dev/distrib/core/spec.html.

I have talked with the FreeLinux project, which is doing a
meta-distribution.  It sounds like the Core/Layers spec might combine with
the FreeLinux project as the reference implementation.  That means we are
roughly three weeks from release of the meta-distribution (according to
the FreeLinux guy) and closer if I can help them out.  At the same time
I'd like to put out something like 0.1 or 0.5 of the spec.  We've been
getting some good comments from a few people, and we're modifying the spec
to match.  Once I see what the FreeLinux stuff looks like, we'll start
moving in that direction.

The Core/Layers spec (along with the reference distribution that FreeLinux
is working on) presents a superset of the Linux System Base (LSB) 
proposal under discussion on slashdot.org. It addresses some of the issues
that Erik Troan and RedHat are worried about (see his comment in
slashdot), and it's already under development. 

The plan is to gather as much information as we can on all existing
distributions (we have a start on that, see our page) and try to find the
most central definition we can (least distance from all existing
distribs).  Then the FreeLinux meta-distribution will provide a
distribution-neutral (vs. the redhat base I'm starting from) base from
which we can work.  We'll document the deltas between the distributions
and the Core spec (not the reference implementation), which will provide
them with the information they need to become compliant.

Of course, this whole project would be pointless without input and
direction from the existing distributions.  To solve that issue, we need
input from people on every distribution out there that would consider
being compliant.  To that end, we've created a mailing list to help
communications.  Send mail to majordomo@seul.org, with a body of
'subscribe core-layers'.  It can be filtered by the Sender: header, which
will be owner-core-layers@seul.org.

The project's homepage is at http://www.seul.org/dev/distrib/core/, and
FreeLinux can be found at http://www.freelinux.org/.

TTYL,
    Omega

     Erik Walthinsen <omega@seul.org> - SEUL Project system architect
        __
       /  \                SEUL: Simple End-User Linux -
      |    | M E G A            Creating a Linux distribution
      _\  /_                         for the home or office user