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...