All the major commercial Linux developers are certified to Linux Standard Base 4.0 (LSB 4.0), the Linux Foundation announced on Wednesday.

The roster includes: Canonical, Kylin, Linpus, Mandriva, Neoshine, Novell, Oracle, Red Flag, and Red Hat.

The LSB is designed to provide interoperability between third-party applications and the Linux operating system, letting developers address various versions of the OS with one software program. It also lets Linux vendors show customers they meet a common set of industry standards, and that they are working in lockstep with the industry as a whole to advance Linux, the foundation said.

In addition, the nonprofit organization that advocates and supports the growth of Linux unveiled a beta of the LSB 4.1, and began soliciting public feedback. An official release is slated for January.

"We are pleased to release the next version of the LSB to the public. We are also happy to report that the distribution community has worked together on the standard and all are certified," said Jim Zemlin, executive director at the Linux Foundation. "This is good for the Linux community, good for Linux customers, and good for Linux vendors."

Founded in 2007, the Linux Foundation was created to help developers resolve the challenges surrounding the number of varieties of Linux and lower the overall cost of supporting the platform. By reducing the differences among individual Linux distributions, the LSB cuts the expense of porting applications to different distributions, and reduces the overhead associated with aftermarket support, according to the foundation.

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