4 ms·

I personally don't packaging apps in a sandbox, its a violation of the basic idea of writing tools that do one thing well. Still, snap gets lots of flack, but I

I personally don't packaging apps in a sandbox, its a violation of the basic idea of writing tools that do one thing well. Still, snap gets lots of flack, but I don't see the same for flatpak. Is there some advantage to flatpak that I am missing, or is it just than Ubuntu has pushed snaps too hard?

kemayo 6y ago
It sounds like the objection isn't technical -- sandboxed apps are perfectly fine -- but rather to how Canonical is trying to change package behavior alongside the transition. Specifically, they're forcing you to use them for some packages behind the scenes, and restricting what you can do with those packages as a result: > "In the Ubuntu 20.04 package base, the Chromium package is indeed empty and acting, without your consent, as a backdoor by connecting your computer to the Ubuntu Store. Applications in this store cannot be patched, or pinned. You can't audit them, hold them, modify them, or even point snap to a different store. You've as much empowerment with this as if you were using proprietary software, i.e. none. This is in effect similar to a commercial proprietary solution, but with two major differences: It runs as root, and it installs itself without asking you."
- simosx 6y ago
  The Mint maintainer went out of his way to react in bad faith. The chromium transition was announced in October 2019, https://snapcraft.io/blog/chromium-in-ubuntu-deb-to-snap-transition https://snapcraft.io/blog/chromium-in-ubuntu-deb-to-snap-tra... Ubuntu was not able to maintain chromium as a deb package, and chromium is not the default browser in Ubuntu. Therefore, it has been packaged as a snap package. Since there is no longer an apt package, what should happen when you "sudo apt install chromium-browser"? The usable decision was to install the snap package of Chromium instead, https://snapcraft.io/blog/chromium-in-ubuntu-deb-to-snap-transition https://snapcraft.io/blog/chromium-in-ubuntu-deb-to-snap-tra... The snap package of Chromium has been in testing for two years already. The snap package page is https://snapcraft.io/chromium https://snapcraft.io/chromium You can view the installation log, with the list of operating systems that have installed it.
kyrofa 6y ago
> Is there some advantage to flatpak that I am missing, or is it just than Ubuntu has pushed snaps too hard? Those aren't the only two options :) .
rlpb 6y ago
Every time Canonical comes up with something to improve the state of things, there's a contingent of vocal Canonical opponents who focus on putting their weight behind an alternative. These voices will back the alternative, no matter what, because it's not Canonical. That's not to say that the alternatives have no merit. They do, because they're driven by developers who do have valid differences of opinion from Canonical's approach and want to do things differently. That's always going to be the case because different people are always going weigh things differently and take different directions on things. But the rhetoric usually becomes louder than the valid discourse. Take this headline for example. This is entirely about the politics. The technical merit of the Chromium packaging being a snap doesn't apply - because the alternative would be a deb provided and maintained by a distribution, and Mint aren't doing that. Ubuntu switched to a Chromium snap because maintaining the Chromium deb is no longer practical. Many snap critics will tell you that distribution debs are better for curation and trust reasons. That's not an option here, because Mint is not even providing that as an alternative.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
akvadrako 6y ago
Yes, flatpak supports multiple upstream repositories, so anyone can release packages. I am going to start a repo soon for packaging AUR packages so they can be used on other distros. Snaps are fully controlled by Ubuntu - for me it's a non-starter.
oftenwrong 6y ago
One MAJOR downside of Snap is that the server-side component is closed-source. You cannot host your own Snap repository. With Flatpak, you can.

kemayo 6y ago

It sounds like the objection isn't technical -- sandboxed apps are perfectly fine -- but rather to how Canonical is trying to change package behavior alongside the transition. Specifically, they're forcing you to use them for some packages behind the scenes, and restricting what you can do with those packages as a result: > "In the Ubuntu 20.04 package base, the Chromium package is indeed empty and acting, without your consent, as a backdoor by connecting your computer to the Ubuntu Store. Applications in this store cannot be patched, or pinned. You can't audit them, hold them, modify them, or even point snap to a different store. You've as much empowerment with this as if you were using proprietary software, i.e. none. This is in effect similar to a commercial proprietary solution, but with two major differences: It runs as root, and it installs itself without asking you."

simosx 6y ago
The Mint maintainer went out of his way to react in bad faith. The chromium transition was announced in October 2019, https://snapcraft.io/blog/chromium-in-ubuntu-deb-to-snap-transition https://snapcraft.io/blog/chromium-in-ubuntu-deb-to-snap-tra... Ubuntu was not able to maintain chromium as a deb package, and chromium is not the default browser in Ubuntu. Therefore, it has been packaged as a snap package. Since there is no longer an apt package, what should happen when you "sudo apt install chromium-browser"? The usable decision was to install the snap package of Chromium instead, https://snapcraft.io/blog/chromium-in-ubuntu-deb-to-snap-transition https://snapcraft.io/blog/chromium-in-ubuntu-deb-to-snap-tra... The snap package of Chromium has been in testing for two years already. The snap package page is https://snapcraft.io/chromium https://snapcraft.io/chromium You can view the installation log, with the list of operating systems that have installed it.

kyrofa 6y ago

> Is there some advantage to flatpak that I am missing, or is it just than Ubuntu has pushed snaps too hard? Those aren't the only two options :) .

rlpb 6y ago

Every time Canonical comes up with something to improve the state of things, there's a contingent of vocal Canonical opponents who focus on putting their weight behind an alternative. These voices will back the alternative, no matter what, because it's not Canonical. That's not to say that the alternatives have no merit. They do, because they're driven by developers who do have valid differences of opinion from Canonical's approach and want to do things differently. That's always going to be the case because different people are always going weigh things differently and take different directions on things. But the rhetoric usually becomes louder than the valid discourse. Take this headline for example. This is entirely about the politics. The technical merit of the Chromium packaging being a snap doesn't apply - because the alternative would be a deb provided and maintained by a distribution, and Mint aren't doing that. Ubuntu switched to a Chromium snap because maintaining the Chromium deb is no longer practical. Many snap critics will tell you that distribution debs are better for curation and trust reasons. That's not an option here, because Mint is not even providing that as an alternative.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

akvadrako 6y ago

Yes, flatpak supports multiple upstream repositories, so anyone can release packages. I am going to start a repo soon for packaging AUR packages so they can be used on other distros. Snaps are fully controlled by Ubuntu - for me it's a non-starter.

oftenwrong 6y ago

One MAJOR downside of Snap is that the server-side component is closed-source. You cannot host your own Snap repository. With Flatpak, you can.