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> Create a universal packaging format for bundling software which supports signatures, weak dependencies, isolation (aka sandboxing/virtualization), clean unins
by sandGorgon 8y ago
> Create a universal packaging format for bundling software which supports signatures, weak dependencies, isolation (aka sandboxing/virtualization), clean uninstallation and standard APIs to make it possible to integrate an application with your DE.
Well this battle is lost. There was always the RPM/DEB/PKGBUILD split. But rather than unifying the standards, we now have Flatpak vs Snap split.
It is seriously frustrating that when distros can agree on core infrastructure stuff like systemd-vs-upstart and wayland-vs-mir ... we still have a software distribution split that is more political than technical.
This ultimately hurts linux - because there's never going to be that clear monopoly in the packaging space. Someone or the other is going to say "I can only package for X. All others can go figure it out themselves".
I dont know... maybe APK (android) has won as the predominant linux packaging format ? I'm kind of waiting for ChromeOS as the true Linux distro.
- geezerjay 8y agoIt's not a political issue if you want to force distros to move their entire packaging infrastructure to a backward incompatible format that might still not be compatible with other distros because they ship specific versions of some packages which are in addittion packaged in a very particular way. Switching to RPM/DEB/PKGBUILD is not a simple problem, because the problem isn't really which packaging infrastructure is used.
- sandGorgon 8y agoBut I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about TWO competing FUTURE formats that were invented to carry the battle forward. Snap and Flatpak is already incompatible with what came before. They chose to not come to a a middle ground quite deliberately.