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The way I see it:

Autopackage attempts to define a distribution neutral alternative to software distribution-such along with an adhered to LSB could provide a way for third parties to distribute their software to all Linux distributions.

Zeroinstall allows users of Linux systems who do not have root priveledges (common in the "enterprise market" and all multi-user installations) to have access to applications transparently without any adverse effects on the system upon which it is running. Great for "total packaged" solutions.

"autobuild" would give the big binary distributors a tool with which to combat the incompatibilities borne of their market driven branding needs. If all of the major distributors had something like "autobuild" the draconian effects of trying to curtail code re-usage(read limit dependencies) and the problems with static packages could be avoided.

I applaud the work on the LSB and I hope that it becomes reality. I also am pleased to see that the partisan infighting which has accompanied all discussion as to what should be part of "Linux" is taking a backseat to the spirit of cooperation embodied in freedesktop.org. A lot of progress has been made and the signs look promising for the future but the problems are still here and have not been completely resolved: why is it that the GTK libraries end up in /usr/lib but QT/KDE does not ? why is it that dbus is dependent upon glib and how should KDE reconcile itself to such a dependency(Not Invented Here syndrome).

But whatever may become of the LSB if it's success is dependent on "avoiding dependencies", ie. less code re-usage, or statically and artificially ossifying the rapid development of Linux applications and there dependent libraries in order to achieve "solutions" for third party application developers the "solution" may in fact become worse than the "problem". If Linux was still a "no man's land void of applications" as it was many years ago and "winning over" new applications was the biggest task in Linux land I would be more prone to accepting such draconian measures. But this is not the case any more, of course the situation can be improved and I am not saying that there are not any problems, on the contrary the potential for problems is abundantly clear.

But the question is where and on whose shoulders the responsibility for such rests. The main culprits in this situation are the major distributions themselves and proprietary third-party software developers. For those of you who have not noticed NVIDIA includes an "autobuilding" tool in their proprietary binary packages-this should be commended and I wish that the major distributors would take it upon themselves to develop such technology so as to offset the incompatibilities created by their endorsement and sponsorship of and by proprietary software. Such a move would go much farther towards addressing issues of "dependency hell" than any LSB could ever attain. But then again the undertaking involved in (re-)creating sane build environments to facilitate such on demand, dynamic "autobuilding" of dependencies is an undertaking at least as grand in scale as adherence to some proposed LSB.

As a footnote, "autobuild" could completely solve the legal problems surrounding the issues of proprietary codec support and DVD playback in Linux. Instead of shipping crippled media players with Linux which are worse than useless a simple script could be written to invoke autobuild to automagically download the source and compile those libraries needed to provide such support under Linux-absolving the distributors of any legal liabilities because they would not be "distributing" the software. This issue is actually where most Linux users first encounter "dependency hell" and such a "solution" could be advantageous to all parties involved.

What do you think of such an idea ? Does such sound plausible to you ? Are there issues which I not taking into account which you have encountered ? Have you heard of any similar discussion within the free software community ?

About the author:
I am Karl Zollner. I have frequented the OSNEWS forums for the past two years and have been involved with computers for over 25 years. OS's have come and gone along with the platforms upon which they were built-I finally found my home on Linux.