On the one hand the idea is good. In libguestfs we go to huge lengths to deal with the release files of many different Linux and BSD distributions[1].
On the other hand, when was this discussed? Are all the Linux distros and BSD on board? OS X? Windows? (I'm serious)
/etc/os-release has all the problems of /etc/lsb-release, but even fewer people will use it (if you count distro numbers rather than users, hardly anyone is using lsb-release).
This file could have been a lot more useful if it had been discussed with people who might consume it. As it is, we'll be parsing this as a fallback, but continue using distro-specific release files.
Comments
On the one hand the idea is good. In libguestfs we go to huge lengths to deal with the release files of many different Linux and BSD distributions[1].
On the other hand, when was this discussed? Are all the Linux distros and BSD on board? OS X? Windows? (I'm serious)
/etc/os-release has all the problems of /etc/lsb-release, but even fewer people will use it (if you count distro numbers rather than users, hardly anyone is using lsb-release).
This file could have been a lot more useful if it had been discussed with people who might consume it. As it is, we'll be parsing this as a fallback, but continue using distro-specific release files.
[1] https://github.com/libguestfs/libguestfs/blob/84a4160fd30c46...
And if not then this xkcd comes to mind: http://xkcd.com/927/
Yes, and this too: http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
I'd never even heard of lsb release... I always just did a cat /etc/release to get the version