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>There is controversy about how Brave does stuff, and I agree there is some sketchy stuff they are doing I would be more open to trying/using brave if someone

>There is controversy about how Brave does stuff, and I agree there is some sketchy stuff they are doing I would be more open to trying/using brave if someone respectable packaged it. As of writing, not a single distro packages it. It would lower my barrier to entry a lot if it were packaged by debian/fedora/f-droid. It doesn't imply anything serious, just that it can be built from source and that it passed the distro's basic diligence and guidelines. This seems like low-hanging fruit from brave's standpoint, and yet multiple issues on their github tracker about packaging downstream have remained open for a while.

jancsika 7y ago
If they care about both a fast development cycle and rapid adoption then spending time getting an official package for Debian/etc. makes no sense. > It doesn't imply anything serious, just that it can be built from source and that it passed the distro's basic diligence and guidelines. For a modern web browser it probably doesn't achieve the latter. Both Chromium and Firefox are too complex for Debian's meager backporting resources. So they make an exception to their guidelines and ship the LTS release. I suppose the userbase just hopes that bad things don't if the browser LTS upgrade happens before the OS's LTS upgrade is ready.
- bubblethink 7y ago
  Firefox has an LTS release, but chromium doesn't. So distros just ship the update every month whenever chromium is tagged. In practice, it follows chrome's release cycle very closely. Since brave is based on chromium, I don't see why this model can't work for brave given that distos are able to build and ship chromium already. (Android is a more complicated story )
- pkulak 7y ago
  Then make a Flatpak.
alexnewman 7y ago
Hi, in my sparetime I help some of the linux packaging for Brave. We are looking for people to help us do this very thing. We provide packaged for deb, rpm, and snap. I maintain the snaps for brave but have been disappointed with the performance. If you are willing to test an maintain distros we'd be more than happy to get you involved.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  What is required in terms of testing?
- traek 7y ago
  Brave is a private, for-profit company that has raised $42 million in venture funding—out of curiosity why do you bother doing free work for them in your spare time?
  - ppseafield 7y ago
    Maybe the effort isn't for the company, but for the distros and their users. Is nvidia packaging its proprietary drivers for Ubuntu?
    - alexnewman 7y ago
      No it's for the project.
  - rjf72 7y ago
    This same argument is true of nearly all companies, including "not for profit." For instance the chair at Mozilla/FireFox pays himself $1.1 million a year, the treasurer $1 million. [1] And those numbers are probably higher now. That's from 2016, the most recent published data on their site. Since 2013 [2] their CEO has increased his yearly compensation by more than $300k, and the treasurer increased his pay by more than $400k a year. And now with Mozilla planning to release a pay-per-month browser (because their half a billion dollars in revenue just isn't enough!), we can expect to see that executive compensation skyrocket even further. What people like to imagine "not for profit" means is not what it means in practice. [1] - https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2016/2016_Mozilla_Foundation_Forms_990_Public_Disclosure.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2016/2016_Mozilla_Fo... [2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10101637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10101637
_emacsomancer_ 7y ago
Nix packages it: https://nixos.org/nixos/packages.html#brave https://nixos.org/nixos/packages.html#brave , which means you could use the Nix stand-alone package manager to install it on top of any distro. (I just tried this and am typing this from Brave, installed via the Nix stand-alone package manager running in Void Linux.)
- bubblethink 7y ago
  It's fetching brave's binary. That's not what I meant by packaging. src = fetchurl { url = "https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/download/v${version}/brave-browser_${version}_amd64.deb"; https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/download/v${... sha256 = "1lbajxnxqkd422rckfjm65pwwzl66v7anq4jrzxi29d5x7abl3c1"; }; Also, bad look for nixos. I was curious about nixos too, but it'll have to be debian and fedora for now.
  - _emacsomancer_ 7y ago
    Fair point, though I don't know what would go into properly packaging Brave. They certainly don't package Brave in any fashion, but if you were curious about NixOS, you might look at Guix System.

jancsika 7y ago

If they care about both a fast development cycle and rapid adoption then spending time getting an official package for Debian/etc. makes no sense. > It doesn't imply anything serious, just that it can be built from source and that it passed the distro's basic diligence and guidelines. For a modern web browser it probably doesn't achieve the latter. Both Chromium and Firefox are too complex for Debian's meager backporting resources. So they make an exception to their guidelines and ship the LTS release. I suppose the userbase just hopes that bad things don't if the browser LTS upgrade happens before the OS's LTS upgrade is ready.

bubblethink 7y ago
Firefox has an LTS release, but chromium doesn't. So distros just ship the update every month whenever chromium is tagged. In practice, it follows chrome's release cycle very closely. Since brave is based on chromium, I don't see why this model can't work for brave given that distos are able to build and ship chromium already. (Android is a more complicated story )
pkulak 7y ago
Then make a Flatpak.

alexnewman 7y ago

Hi, in my sparetime I help some of the linux packaging for Brave. We are looking for people to help us do this very thing. We provide packaged for deb, rpm, and snap. I maintain the snaps for brave but have been disappointed with the performance. If you are willing to test an maintain distros we'd be more than happy to get you involved.

ekianjo 7y ago
What is required in terms of testing?
traek 7y ago
Brave is a private, for-profit company that has raised $42 million in venture funding—out of curiosity why do you bother doing free work for them in your spare time?
- ppseafield 7y ago
  Maybe the effort isn't for the company, but for the distros and their users. Is nvidia packaging its proprietary drivers for Ubuntu?
  - alexnewman 7y ago
    No it's for the project.
- rjf72 7y ago
  This same argument is true of nearly all companies, including "not for profit." For instance the chair at Mozilla/FireFox pays himself $1.1 million a year, the treasurer $1 million. [1] And those numbers are probably higher now. That's from 2016, the most recent published data on their site. Since 2013 [2] their CEO has increased his yearly compensation by more than $300k, and the treasurer increased his pay by more than $400k a year. And now with Mozilla planning to release a pay-per-month browser (because their half a billion dollars in revenue just isn't enough!), we can expect to see that executive compensation skyrocket even further. What people like to imagine "not for profit" means is not what it means in practice. [1] - https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2016/2016_Mozilla_Foundation_Forms_990_Public_Disclosure.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2016/2016_Mozilla_Fo... [2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10101637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10101637

_emacsomancer_ 7y ago

Nix packages it: https://nixos.org/nixos/packages.html#brave https://nixos.org/nixos/packages.html#brave , which means you could use the Nix stand-alone package manager to install it on top of any distro. (I just tried this and am typing this from Brave, installed via the Nix stand-alone package manager running in Void Linux.)

bubblethink 7y ago
It's fetching brave's binary. That's not what I meant by packaging. src = fetchurl { url = "https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/download/v${version}/brave-browser_${version}_amd64.deb"; https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/download/v${... sha256 = "1lbajxnxqkd422rckfjm65pwwzl66v7anq4jrzxi29d5x7abl3c1"; }; Also, bad look for nixos. I was curious about nixos too, but it'll have to be debian and fedora for now.
- _emacsomancer_ 7y ago
  Fair point, though I don't know what would go into properly packaging Brave. They certainly don't package Brave in any fashion, but if you were curious about NixOS, you might look at Guix System.