
According to distrowatch :)
and that was the line, that sort of put this project in its niche.
I don't know, it is not hard to port applications across distros, and some of the distros don't use dependency checking which is the big problem ever since the term RPM dependency hell came into being.
Nowadays there are hardly any problems, sure it happens but the packaging systems all have ways to deal with it.
So, perhaps they are a little late to the party, it is a bit like FHS sure people look at it and see if it offers something, but if they deviate from logic or pragmatism people ignore it.
Good luck to them, but I don't think their certificate will mean much at all, and I think it appeals more to those who cannot already build their own systems. For example do they address the issues of centralized build server, creating different versions for different architectures or for different user requirements? Sloting is useful, and I would love to see that concept further extended, but I doubt they would be able to address that.
And some of the better distros use a rolling release schedule, I wouldn't like to see things held up because people are having to adhere to these standards, and sometimes you want a different init system and to use different baseline command line tools, if they mandate some things as having to be available it causes problems and conflicts, so distros ignore it.
The toolchain for a from source distro is also very complex, it is always amusing upgrading the thing that will then upgrade everything else, if they try and step in there it will cause problems, it is inevitable.
And think about the number of different package management tools available, each being able to determine how the system is laid out, each determining the dependencies, and default configs. There are tons, most of them niched and doing certain things. So, if I am building a lite weight distro I don't want something that brings in a sql database as required, or perhaps I don't python to run the package management system because it forces C++ in gcc. So, I wouldn't like this endeavour to reduce choice, and it has that potential.
My suspicion is people will give this project a nod, but on the whole ignore it, a bit like distrowatch :)