11 ms·

Please don't unofficially ship Bottles in distribution repositories

70 points by ddtaylor 4y ago

Night_Thastus 4y ago
Could someone here clarify exactly what the problem is? I don't know what Bottles is, or what it means to be "shipped in distribution repositories". What does it mean to be "unofficial"?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nailer 4y ago
  Bottles is a wine UI and encapsulation layer, similar to the separate previously existing project Bottles, which is is a wine UI and encapsulation layer. This new Bottles project is appealing to the community to change their behaviour as they are doing something the new Bottles finds undesirable.
  - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
    Why would you ever use one of these random "Bottles" wrappers instead of the actual Codeweavers Crossover (the company behind many of the salaries of actual Wine developers) is over me.
    - nailer 4y ago
      CodeWeavers also made the original Bottles. From a decade ago: > The Manage Bottles functionality lets you manage the Windows software you have under CrossOver, and displays information regarding the bottles they are placed in. You can think of a bottle as a selfcontained Windows environment. Bottles can come in several different flavors—Win98, Win2K, WinXP, etc. https://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/marketing/ReviewersGuideToCrossOver_v2012.pdf https://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/marketing/Review...
- brnt 4y ago
  Last time I read about Bottles, they refered to a kind of Wine prefix. A dir or package that'd run your Windows program.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  Bottles is a software package that makes it easier to run Windows software in Linux-based operating systems (using WINE as the compatibility layer, hence the name). A Linux distribution (often just "distribution" or "distro") is an operating system that combines an assortment of software packages together; typically a kernel (some version of Linux), core system utilities (coreutils, an init system / service manager), a package manager (program to install software from specified sources; this will become important in a moment), and frequently some sort of graphical system (Desktop Environment). The name is because it distributes a collection of software together. The thing is, the vast majority of software shipped in/by a distribution isn't written by the distro; a distro is at some level simply a collection of scripts to download sources, compile it into package files, and then bundle those into a usable system. While there are exceptions, most distros have official repositories of software that's been packaged for that distro. What's happened here is that Bottles is a software package that explicitly doesn't want distros to ship it. Bottles views the packages built/shipped by Linux distros as "unofficial" because they weren't created by the Bottles project.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- rsstack 4y ago
  Bottles helps run Windows apps (especially games) on Linux. They have their own installers and updates channel. Generally when using Linux, you will usually install software from the Linux distribution's (like operating system flavor) software repository. It makes dependency management simpler, you get updates only after they're tested, etc. Those repositories are officially supported by the Linux distribution team (which could be employees for a company like Canonical, or volunteers) but not officially supported by the Bottles team. Bottles is asking the various Linux distributions to stop offering Bottles through the distribution repositories. The Bottles team wants to own the relationship with the end-user under their own terms: only recent versions, only installers that were tested by them personally, and they will support the community issues. Today distros often deliver older versions and modified installers, while still sending the community to get support from the Bottles team.
  - Night_Thastus 4y ago
    That clears it up mostly, I think. Thanks! How do other software creators deal with this problem? I can see how getting reports for issues could be frustrating if they weren't easy to replicate due to the distribution having a different version of that software.
    - rsstack 4y ago
      I think it's a complicated question to answer because there are so many possible combinations. 1. Simpler software doesn't usually have issues with broken installers. 2. A lot of software doesn't get frequent-enough updates that old versions would matter. 3. High-profile projects usually have personal connections with the major distributions' packaging team (or even a "personal union", where it's actually the same people). And there are other cases. I think Bottles got stuck in a spot where their software is _very_ complicated to install correctly, updates often (young project + interactions with 3rd party software such as games), and they're a small team that doesn't have a way to work efficiently with the distributions.
      - mjw1007 4y ago
mjw1007 4y ago
Maybe it's time for more free software projects to take advantage of the the "may require derived works to carry a different name" clause in the Debian Free Software Guidelines and the Open Source Definition. I think I'd be happiest in a world where distributions make their own decisions about what to package, but in a way that doesn't lead to their users filing unhelpful issues in the upstream bugtracker.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  > but in a way that doesn't lead to their users filing unhelpful issues in the upstream bugtracker. AFAIK most distros also view that as a bug, actually; every time I've seen it discussed was in the context of telling people to file bugs against the distro's bug tracker, both because distros can and do have local bugs that don't even make sense to upstream, and because distro maintainers are generally much better placed to triage and sometimes debug issues.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    I have filed a lot of bugs against user level apps on distro bug trackers. Not a single one received even a comment or tag from a maintainer. Unless its a core system app that affects servers, they don't care or have time.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sdkgjajggaf 4y ago
This is xscreensaver debacle all over again. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11412081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11412081 Of course many distros will just tell the upstream to pound sand, and more power to them. When I'm perfectly happy running the version that shipped with my OS, I DON'T want your updates. Just leave me alone.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  Uh, wouldn't you, as the user, rather have the power to determine for yourself which version you'd like to stop upgrading at? That certainly sounds a lot better than letting a bunch of unpaid third party volunteers determine that for you, which is how the distro/repo model works.
  - pooper 4y ago
    > unpaid third party volunteers I struggle with this question as well but a small nit here is the folks at Fedora or Debian are not third party. They are a trusted source for me. I don't know what would be a good solution. Being available on flathub is a good start but I'd argue it is not enough. I'm going to say the proper solution is the same that I advocate Google Play and Apple App Store to follow: 1. require developers to submit source code and machine readable build instructions 2. the store should build the application (fat binaries, differential small updates, whatever, the app store is in charge) 3. ... 4. Profit?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - wmf 4y ago
      3. The store does little or no testing so users would have been better off with official binaries
  - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
    In general, I trust the folks running the distro more than the folks writing the software in the first place. If nothing else, they provide/enforce a second pair of eyes to sanity check things before they get shipped.
pavon 4y ago
When I see this I pretty much read it as: > This software is not mature yet. Beta testers are highly welcomed, but neither users nor developers get value from people running a beta release that is over a year old. Which is a perfectly reasonable position for a software project to be in. And if they want to continue to treat their project as Beta software indefinitely that's fine too, but I will treat it as such.
- mort96 4y ago
  Why would you read it as that? It's clearly not "mature" as in "doesn't need to change much", but it seems like they're seriously committed to quality assurance and testing and stuff you generally don't associate with beta software. You don't get to write off all software that's not super compatible with some distros' packaging models as "beta software".
  - em-bee 4y ago
    beta is the last step before release, which should be stable. if it is not mature enough for a stable release then that's the right label
    - mort96 4y ago
      Where the hell are you getting your definitions from? You're claiming a piece of software is in beta because in your opinion the releases are too frequent? I suppose you think Google Chrome is in beta too, because it also isn't "mature" enough to be "stable"? Beta is the last step before release. Nowhere in the definition of "release" is there a requirement that there will be years until the next release, or whatever you think "stable" means in this context. And frankly, release frequency isn't even the topic of the post; a lack of distros doing QA of their packages is the topic. Which hardly falls on Bottles for being "unstable".
      - em-bee 4y ago
        stable means that i can use it for a year without needing updates. frequent releases are nice to add new features. but if i don't need the features then i should be able to continue using the old version. if frequent releases are caused by bugs that need to be fixed then that's not stable.
duped 4y ago
The solution to this is to change the license to forbid redistribution, not to write an open letter. I think something that is worth discussing is the model of the Linux distribution that leads to poor user experience like this, the distribution issues they are having would be worth discussing in a longer and more technical blog post. It's come up many times among criticisms of Linux ecosystems and distributing user software, but it doesn't seem like the message lands well. It's remarkable how much easier it is to write software on Linux yet equally remarkable how much more annoying it is to reliably distribute it, compared to say MacOS .apps, the iOS/Android app stores, and to a lesser extent Windows. I don't think there has to be a tradeoff here between Freedom and UX.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  GNOME is in a position where any of their sponsored apps switching off of GPL could threaten their FSF endorsement. Creating a redistribution-hostile license forcing users to install Flatpaks instead of native packaging would definitely be an infraction of the FSF values, and it would certainly earn the ire of a non-insignificant number of users who have never touched Flatpak before or have no intentions of using it.
  - wmf 4y ago
    GNOME doesn't need FSF endorsement. I would even say that the FSF might benefit from GNOME's endorsement.
- jefftk 4y ago
  > The solution to this is to change the license to forbid redistribution, not to write an open letter. An open letter is a much softer approach. There's room for options between "legally permissible, end of story" and "completely prohibited".
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  > The solution to this is to change the license to forbid redistribution, not to write an open letter. That depends on goals and what they're willing to do to accomplish those goals; it's quite reasonable to not want to stop being open source over this and to try asking nicely. > I think something that is worth discussing is the model of the Linux distribution that leads to poor user experience like this[...]. It's come up many times among criticisms of Linux ecosystems and distributing user software, but it doesn't seem like the message lands well. Because it's not universally viewed as a bug. Plenty of folks explicitly want to download software from their distro's official repos, get something that's specifically tested (and if need be, patched) to play nice with the system, and stay on a known stable version. Because the flip side of this complaint is distro maintainers pointing out that if you downloaded random 3rd party software and added it to your system, they're no longer capable of assuring you that the result will work. > It's remarkable how much easier it is to write software on Linux yet equally remarkable how much more annoying it is to reliably distribute it, compared to say MacOS .apps, the iOS/Android app stores, and to a lesser extent Windows. I don't think there has to be a tradeoff here between Freedom and UX. Some folks would argue that it's harder because you shouldn't be doing it; https://drewdevault.com/2021/09/27/Let-distros-do-their-job.html https://drewdevault.com/2021/09/27/Let-distros-do-their-job.... . But if you want to go that way, there's always flatpak/docker/snaps to go around the distro and ship directly to end users.
smoldesu 4y ago
Why? Bottles has Flatpak-specific issues that haven't been resolved yet, and using system-provided WINE is a much better solution. Another GNOME Trojan horse, I suppose. Perfectly comfortable dropping Bottles for Lutris though.
- phoronixrly 4y ago
  I was on-board with this comment until the uncalled for GNOME hate
hexo 4y ago
Please, don't force me (or anyone) to use flatpak. My system package manager is very competent.
- mook 4y ago
  I had basically the same thought: as a user, flatpak means I'll need to install an extra daemon for something that doesn't need to run all the time, and therefore it's right out. AppImage is better in that it doesn't need that, but it has other limitations for the packaged software. I've also used software that just plopped files into /opt/… not great, but at least it's mostly contained. If you're not going to support some users, don't be surprised that somebody else ends up doing it I guess?
- mort96 4y ago
  Then you should be perfectly happy with this ask! The article ends with this addendum: > Our invitation is addressed to all those who are packaging Bottles incorrectly and/or do not provide adequate tests, thus invalidating the user experience. We are happy to help anyone who would like to keep their package, adapting to our quality standards (i.e. making the application work as it intended). If your system package manager and the people who package Bottles for your system are both very competent (i.e they don't break the software they package and don't introduce problems), Bottles isn't asking your system's packagers to stop packaging the software.
fxtentacle 4y ago
In my opinion, the issue is mainly that Bottles is still very much beta. It really needs those frequent updates, which makes it a bad candidate for distro packaging. The correct decision, in my opinion, would have been to break it up into a stable GUI / configuration system and a daily updated "core engine", similar to how antivirus software updates its detection lists. Distros then package the stable parts and the core engine is updated on-demand. But instead they insist on merging everything and all dependencies into one huge (and in my opinion very bloated) flatpak image which you, the user, then re-download for every tiny update. 10kb code change? re-download all dependencies and all assets!
- db65edfc7996 4y ago
  You may disagree with how they develop it, but I am very much a happy user of Bottles (other than how needlessly hard it is to search). It has made configuring wine and friends so much easier than before. Previously, I would just give up on about the second random forum post indicating this was the magic configuration required to run program X. I will eat the disk space and heavy updates if it means I have an easier time of running windows applications.
- wmf 4y ago
  Distros then package the stable parts and the core engine is updated on-demand. Would any distro allow this? AFAIK they don't allow distro packages to depend on outside stuff.
  - erik_seaberg 4y ago
    There are rolling distros, with weaker guarantees about whether anything still works from day to day. IMHO Bottles should fork one and make a distro, because they have strong opinions about ownership of update decisions.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  >then re-download for every tiny update. 10kb code change? re-download all dependencies and all assets! I have never experienced this with flatpak. The updates have always been very small unless they require a new platform version, but these platforms are shared between packages as well. Having custom updaters in every package to fetch a new "core" sounds like the worst of all situations leading to something like windows where every time you open an app it prompts you to download the new version.
viraptor 4y ago
> For a long time, we have included workarounds in the codebase to disable features or change their behavior when dependencies are missing or incorrect. I don't get this part. Why can't they enforce their constraints at build / start-up time instead?
whycombinetor 4y ago
I made it to the 4th paragraphs before realizing, no, they weren't talking about shipping water bottles. Their logo is even water bottles.
- icambron 4y ago
  I wish people would also stop publishing water bottles as AUR packages. They never fit through my modem.
- s1mon 4y ago
  Yep. Came here to say something similar. It's amazing how far up their own butt people can get with this stuff. Sure the intended audience for this blog would know what all this stuff is, but it's comical how little sense it makes when all the names of things sound like English, but clearly are overloaded. Bottles, FlatPak, Flathub, distribution repositories, etc.. This is especially confusing coming from HackerNews since there's a bunch of stories about shipping containers recently (as it the 40' long steel boxes that go on large cargo vessels across oceans). I realize that not everything can be written for any random person on the internet to stumble upon and have it make sense, but since any random person can end up on a blog page, some context would be helpful. It's always baffling to me the web sites for newspapers or restaurants which assume that I know what city/state/country they are in, just because I've landed on a page. Perhaps putting that somewhere in the header/footer just to help ground people would be ok?
HKH2 4y ago
Why can't they just include a visible warning in the software if it is not up to date? Many applications already do that. (I get it might take a little while to get the changes downstream).
SuperSandro2000 4y ago
NixOS Developer here which keeps the bottles package up to date on the side. Updates are usually in master within a day and on the unstable channel within a week or two. Also our distribution model allows us to use the latest and shiniest for bottles or something a little bit older if it isn't working. GTK4 and libadwaita aren't a problem either and are already available to use. PS: many problems with packages on NixOS are on NixOS. If something is not working always try first to discet it yourself and seek help on Matrix if you are stuck, need help or just have general questions. If you can find a fix, PRs are always welcome. If not that's okay. Maybe you created interest on matrix and someone is going to jump on the fix train. Also you can always creame an issue with all the information you already gathered and logs.
TeddyDD 4y ago
Instead of asking distros to drop your package, just state that the only supported channel of distribution is flatpak. Mercilessly close any issue opened by a user of an unofficial package. Simple as that.
szszrk 4y ago
As time goes by I miss old school distro distribution model more and more, while I used to hate it long time ago. It took to long for new versions to arrive. Now I'm leaning toward Debian and alike, as mainteners do a lot of work I value while developers of many modern products don't. I remind myself about it each time I have to fight with npm issues, for instance.

70 points by ddtaylor 4y ago

Could someone here clarify exactly what the problem is? I don't know what Bottles is, or what it means to be "shipped in distribution repositories". What does it mean to be "unofficial"?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nailer 4y ago
Bottles is a wine UI and encapsulation layer, similar to the separate previously existing project Bottles, which is is a wine UI and encapsulation layer. This new Bottles project is appealing to the community to change their behaviour as they are doing something the new Bottles finds undesirable.
- AshamedCaptain 4y ago
  Why would you ever use one of these random "Bottles" wrappers instead of the actual Codeweavers Crossover (the company behind many of the salaries of actual Wine developers) is over me.
  - nailer 4y ago
    CodeWeavers also made the original Bottles. From a decade ago: > The Manage Bottles functionality lets you manage the Windows software you have under CrossOver, and displays information regarding the bottles they are placed in. You can think of a bottle as a selfcontained Windows environment. Bottles can come in several different flavors—Win98, Win2K, WinXP, etc. https://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/marketing/ReviewersGuideToCrossOver_v2012.pdf https://media.codeweavers.com/pub/crossover/marketing/Review...
brnt 4y ago
Last time I read about Bottles, they refered to a kind of Wine prefix. A dir or package that'd run your Windows program.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
Bottles is a software package that makes it easier to run Windows software in Linux-based operating systems (using WINE as the compatibility layer, hence the name). A Linux distribution (often just "distribution" or "distro") is an operating system that combines an assortment of software packages together; typically a kernel (some version of Linux), core system utilities (coreutils, an init system / service manager), a package manager (program to install software from specified sources; this will become important in a moment), and frequently some sort of graphical system (Desktop Environment). The name is because it distributes a collection of software together. The thing is, the vast majority of software shipped in/by a distribution isn't written by the distro; a distro is at some level simply a collection of scripts to download sources, compile it into package files, and then bundle those into a usable system. While there are exceptions, most distros have official repositories of software that's been packaged for that distro. What's happened here is that Bottles is a software package that explicitly doesn't want distros to ship it. Bottles views the packages built/shipped by Linux distros as "unofficial" because they weren't created by the Bottles project.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
rsstack 4y ago
Bottles helps run Windows apps (especially games) on Linux. They have their own installers and updates channel. Generally when using Linux, you will usually install software from the Linux distribution's (like operating system flavor) software repository. It makes dependency management simpler, you get updates only after they're tested, etc. Those repositories are officially supported by the Linux distribution team (which could be employees for a company like Canonical, or volunteers) but not officially supported by the Bottles team. Bottles is asking the various Linux distributions to stop offering Bottles through the distribution repositories. The Bottles team wants to own the relationship with the end-user under their own terms: only recent versions, only installers that were tested by them personally, and they will support the community issues. Today distros often deliver older versions and modified installers, while still sending the community to get support from the Bottles team.
- Night_Thastus 4y ago
  That clears it up mostly, I think. Thanks! How do other software creators deal with this problem? I can see how getting reports for issues could be frustrating if they weren't easy to replicate due to the distribution having a different version of that software.
  - rsstack 4y ago
    I think it's a complicated question to answer because there are so many possible combinations. 1. Simpler software doesn't usually have issues with broken installers. 2. A lot of software doesn't get frequent-enough updates that old versions would matter. 3. High-profile projects usually have personal connections with the major distributions' packaging team (or even a "personal union", where it's actually the same people). And there are other cases. I think Bottles got stuck in a spot where their software is _very_ complicated to install correctly, updates often (young project + interactions with 3rd party software such as games), and they're a small team that doesn't have a way to work efficiently with the distributions.
    - mjw1007 4y ago

mjw1007 4y ago

Maybe it's time for more free software projects to take advantage of the the "may require derived works to carry a different name" clause in the Debian Free Software Guidelines and the Open Source Definition. I think I'd be happiest in a world where distributions make their own decisions about what to package, but in a way that doesn't lead to their users filing unhelpful issues in the upstream bugtracker.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
> but in a way that doesn't lead to their users filing unhelpful issues in the upstream bugtracker. AFAIK most distros also view that as a bug, actually; every time I've seen it discussed was in the context of telling people to file bugs against the distro's bug tracker, both because distros can and do have local bugs that don't even make sense to upstream, and because distro maintainers are generally much better placed to triage and sometimes debug issues.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  I have filed a lot of bugs against user level apps on distro bug trackers. Not a single one received even a comment or tag from a maintainer. Unless its a core system app that affects servers, they don't care or have time.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

sdkgjajggaf 4y ago

This is xscreensaver debacle all over again. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11412081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11412081 Of course many distros will just tell the upstream to pound sand, and more power to them. When I'm perfectly happy running the version that shipped with my OS, I DON'T want your updates. Just leave me alone.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
Uh, wouldn't you, as the user, rather have the power to determine for yourself which version you'd like to stop upgrading at? That certainly sounds a lot better than letting a bunch of unpaid third party volunteers determine that for you, which is how the distro/repo model works.
- pooper 4y ago
  > unpaid third party volunteers I struggle with this question as well but a small nit here is the folks at Fedora or Debian are not third party. They are a trusted source for me. I don't know what would be a good solution. Being available on flathub is a good start but I'd argue it is not enough. I'm going to say the proper solution is the same that I advocate Google Play and Apple App Store to follow: 1. require developers to submit source code and machine readable build instructions 2. the store should build the application (fat binaries, differential small updates, whatever, the app store is in charge) 3. ... 4. Profit?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - wmf 4y ago
    3. The store does little or no testing so users would have been better off with official binaries
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  In general, I trust the folks running the distro more than the folks writing the software in the first place. If nothing else, they provide/enforce a second pair of eyes to sanity check things before they get shipped.

pavon 4y ago

When I see this I pretty much read it as: > This software is not mature yet. Beta testers are highly welcomed, but neither users nor developers get value from people running a beta release that is over a year old. Which is a perfectly reasonable position for a software project to be in. And if they want to continue to treat their project as Beta software indefinitely that's fine too, but I will treat it as such.

mort96 4y ago
Why would you read it as that? It's clearly not "mature" as in "doesn't need to change much", but it seems like they're seriously committed to quality assurance and testing and stuff you generally don't associate with beta software. You don't get to write off all software that's not super compatible with some distros' packaging models as "beta software".
- em-bee 4y ago
  beta is the last step before release, which should be stable. if it is not mature enough for a stable release then that's the right label
  - mort96 4y ago
    Where the hell are you getting your definitions from? You're claiming a piece of software is in beta because in your opinion the releases are too frequent? I suppose you think Google Chrome is in beta too, because it also isn't "mature" enough to be "stable"? Beta is the last step before release. Nowhere in the definition of "release" is there a requirement that there will be years until the next release, or whatever you think "stable" means in this context. And frankly, release frequency isn't even the topic of the post; a lack of distros doing QA of their packages is the topic. Which hardly falls on Bottles for being "unstable".
    - em-bee 4y ago
      stable means that i can use it for a year without needing updates. frequent releases are nice to add new features. but if i don't need the features then i should be able to continue using the old version. if frequent releases are caused by bugs that need to be fixed then that's not stable.

duped 4y ago

The solution to this is to change the license to forbid redistribution, not to write an open letter. I think something that is worth discussing is the model of the Linux distribution that leads to poor user experience like this, the distribution issues they are having would be worth discussing in a longer and more technical blog post. It's come up many times among criticisms of Linux ecosystems and distributing user software, but it doesn't seem like the message lands well. It's remarkable how much easier it is to write software on Linux yet equally remarkable how much more annoying it is to reliably distribute it, compared to say MacOS .apps, the iOS/Android app stores, and to a lesser extent Windows. I don't think there has to be a tradeoff here between Freedom and UX.

smoldesu 4y ago
GNOME is in a position where any of their sponsored apps switching off of GPL could threaten their FSF endorsement. Creating a redistribution-hostile license forcing users to install Flatpaks instead of native packaging would definitely be an infraction of the FSF values, and it would certainly earn the ire of a non-insignificant number of users who have never touched Flatpak before or have no intentions of using it.
- wmf 4y ago
  GNOME doesn't need FSF endorsement. I would even say that the FSF might benefit from GNOME's endorsement.
jefftk 4y ago
> The solution to this is to change the license to forbid redistribution, not to write an open letter. An open letter is a much softer approach. There's room for options between "legally permissible, end of story" and "completely prohibited".
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
> The solution to this is to change the license to forbid redistribution, not to write an open letter. That depends on goals and what they're willing to do to accomplish those goals; it's quite reasonable to not want to stop being open source over this and to try asking nicely. > I think something that is worth discussing is the model of the Linux distribution that leads to poor user experience like this[...]. It's come up many times among criticisms of Linux ecosystems and distributing user software, but it doesn't seem like the message lands well. Because it's not universally viewed as a bug. Plenty of folks explicitly want to download software from their distro's official repos, get something that's specifically tested (and if need be, patched) to play nice with the system, and stay on a known stable version. Because the flip side of this complaint is distro maintainers pointing out that if you downloaded random 3rd party software and added it to your system, they're no longer capable of assuring you that the result will work. > It's remarkable how much easier it is to write software on Linux yet equally remarkable how much more annoying it is to reliably distribute it, compared to say MacOS .apps, the iOS/Android app stores, and to a lesser extent Windows. I don't think there has to be a tradeoff here between Freedom and UX. Some folks would argue that it's harder because you shouldn't be doing it; https://drewdevault.com/2021/09/27/Let-distros-do-their-job.html https://drewdevault.com/2021/09/27/Let-distros-do-their-job.... . But if you want to go that way, there's always flatpak/docker/snaps to go around the distro and ship directly to end users.

smoldesu 4y ago

Why? Bottles has Flatpak-specific issues that haven't been resolved yet, and using system-provided WINE is a much better solution. Another GNOME Trojan horse, I suppose. Perfectly comfortable dropping Bottles for Lutris though.

phoronixrly 4y ago
I was on-board with this comment until the uncalled for GNOME hate

hexo 4y ago

Please, don't force me (or anyone) to use flatpak. My system package manager is very competent.

mook 4y ago
I had basically the same thought: as a user, flatpak means I'll need to install an extra daemon for something that doesn't need to run all the time, and therefore it's right out. AppImage is better in that it doesn't need that, but it has other limitations for the packaged software. I've also used software that just plopped files into /opt/… not great, but at least it's mostly contained. If you're not going to support some users, don't be surprised that somebody else ends up doing it I guess?
mort96 4y ago
Then you should be perfectly happy with this ask! The article ends with this addendum: > Our invitation is addressed to all those who are packaging Bottles incorrectly and/or do not provide adequate tests, thus invalidating the user experience. We are happy to help anyone who would like to keep their package, adapting to our quality standards (i.e. making the application work as it intended). If your system package manager and the people who package Bottles for your system are both very competent (i.e they don't break the software they package and don't introduce problems), Bottles isn't asking your system's packagers to stop packaging the software.

fxtentacle 4y ago

In my opinion, the issue is mainly that Bottles is still very much beta. It really needs those frequent updates, which makes it a bad candidate for distro packaging. The correct decision, in my opinion, would have been to break it up into a stable GUI / configuration system and a daily updated "core engine", similar to how antivirus software updates its detection lists. Distros then package the stable parts and the core engine is updated on-demand. But instead they insist on merging everything and all dependencies into one huge (and in my opinion very bloated) flatpak image which you, the user, then re-download for every tiny update. 10kb code change? re-download all dependencies and all assets!

db65edfc7996 4y ago
You may disagree with how they develop it, but I am very much a happy user of Bottles (other than how needlessly hard it is to search). It has made configuring wine and friends so much easier than before. Previously, I would just give up on about the second random forum post indicating this was the magic configuration required to run program X. I will eat the disk space and heavy updates if it means I have an easier time of running windows applications.
wmf 4y ago
Distros then package the stable parts and the core engine is updated on-demand. Would any distro allow this? AFAIK they don't allow distro packages to depend on outside stuff.
- erik_seaberg 4y ago
  There are rolling distros, with weaker guarantees about whether anything still works from day to day. IMHO Bottles should fork one and make a distro, because they have strong opinions about ownership of update decisions.
Gigachad 4y ago
>then re-download for every tiny update. 10kb code change? re-download all dependencies and all assets! I have never experienced this with flatpak. The updates have always been very small unless they require a new platform version, but these platforms are shared between packages as well. Having custom updaters in every package to fetch a new "core" sounds like the worst of all situations leading to something like windows where every time you open an app it prompts you to download the new version.

viraptor 4y ago

> For a long time, we have included workarounds in the codebase to disable features or change their behavior when dependencies are missing or incorrect. I don't get this part. Why can't they enforce their constraints at build / start-up time instead?

whycombinetor 4y ago

I made it to the 4th paragraphs before realizing, no, they weren't talking about shipping water bottles. Their logo is even water bottles.

icambron 4y ago
I wish people would also stop publishing water bottles as AUR packages. They never fit through my modem.
s1mon 4y ago
Yep. Came here to say something similar. It's amazing how far up their own butt people can get with this stuff. Sure the intended audience for this blog would know what all this stuff is, but it's comical how little sense it makes when all the names of things sound like English, but clearly are overloaded. Bottles, FlatPak, Flathub, distribution repositories, etc.. This is especially confusing coming from HackerNews since there's a bunch of stories about shipping containers recently (as it the 40' long steel boxes that go on large cargo vessels across oceans). I realize that not everything can be written for any random person on the internet to stumble upon and have it make sense, but since any random person can end up on a blog page, some context would be helpful. It's always baffling to me the web sites for newspapers or restaurants which assume that I know what city/state/country they are in, just because I've landed on a page. Perhaps putting that somewhere in the header/footer just to help ground people would be ok?

HKH2 4y ago

Why can't they just include a visible warning in the software if it is not up to date? Many applications already do that. (I get it might take a little while to get the changes downstream).

SuperSandro2000 4y ago

NixOS Developer here which keeps the bottles package up to date on the side. Updates are usually in master within a day and on the unstable channel within a week or two. Also our distribution model allows us to use the latest and shiniest for bottles or something a little bit older if it isn't working. GTK4 and libadwaita aren't a problem either and are already available to use. PS: many problems with packages on NixOS are on NixOS. If something is not working always try first to discet it yourself and seek help on Matrix if you are stuck, need help or just have general questions. If you can find a fix, PRs are always welcome. If not that's okay. Maybe you created interest on matrix and someone is going to jump on the fix train. Also you can always creame an issue with all the information you already gathered and logs.

TeddyDD 4y ago

Instead of asking distros to drop your package, just state that the only supported channel of distribution is flatpak. Mercilessly close any issue opened by a user of an unofficial package. Simple as that.

szszrk 4y ago

As time goes by I miss old school distro distribution model more and more, while I used to hate it long time ago. It took to long for new versions to arrive. Now I'm leaning toward Debian and alike, as mainteners do a lot of work I value while developers of many modern products don't. I remind myself about it each time I have to fight with npm issues, for instance.