RPM

lsb_release/Distributor ID not well specified

Bug #1329454 reported by Jeff Johnson
6
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
RPM
New
Undecided
Unassigned
lsb
In Progress
Medium
Unassigned
Mandriva
In Progress
High

Bug Description

lsb_release -i says:
"Display the string id of the distributor."

lsb_release -d says:
"Display the single line text description of the distribution."

The lsb_release manual page says:

$ ./lsb_release --all
       LSB Version: core-2.0-ia64:core-2.0-noarch:graphics-2.0-ia64:graph-
       ics-2.0-noarch
       Distributor ID: MyDistrib
       Description: I enjoy using my distrib

Here "Distributor ID" is the name of the Distribution, not the Distributor!
If this is what is whished, the field should be renamed to "Distribution ID"
to make that clear.

Description is really a random comment.

Looking at current implementations:
RHEL 5, Ubuntu and SUSE are using the Distributor ID really as "Distributor" ID
and not as Distribution, and the Description as name of the Distribution. But
in that cases the name of the distribution without version number is not
available in all cases. This is very confusing for ISVs and leads to a lot of
conflicting bug reports against different distributions.

Either Distributor ID is the ID of the Distributor and we add a Distribution
name, or we rename Distributor ID to Distribution ID.

Changed in mandriva:
importance: Unknown → High
status: Unknown → In Progress
Jeff Johnson (n3npq)
tags: added: lsb rpm
Jeff Johnson (n3npq)
tags: added: zdecide
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