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> Others can just run a distro for people who believe in open source software. What about Flatpak is contrary to open source software as you seem imply? Flatpa

> Others can just run a distro for people who believe in open source software. What about Flatpak is contrary to open source software as you seem imply? Flatpak itself is free software, so is most of the software packaged with it. There are quite a few good reasons to use Flatpak, especially for developers who want to make their software available on different distributions without wanting to worry about packaging separately themselves. There are valid criticisms of it, but being somehow against open source software or being somehow related to Microsoft is not one of them.

j45 1y ago
People don’t seem to understand the world doesn’t have to accept a solely form of packaging - theirs. Flatpak might not be for me, it certainly helps get some beginners to Linux going. If they outgrow it, that’s great, or maybe they never need to.
neilv 1y ago
Calling it (edit: using the term) "free software" is a great example of utterly failing to promote your own principles, and stabbing the entire mission in the face. Let's try to repurpose an incredibly widely used pre-existing term, that means almost the opposite of the essence of our entire mission, to mean our mission. And every time people tell us that's moronic, we double down. As we continue to watch people somehow totally miss the point of the mission, but surely the fact that we're mind-bogglingly self-sabotaging at advocacy can't have anything to do with that. We should totally keep stabbing ourselves in the face. IMHO, it is one of the most shameful failures of marketing of the last century.
- TheFreim 1y ago
  Flatpak is unambiguously and undeniably free and open source software and the fact that you think it isn't demonstrates that you have been misinformed. The Flatpak project is licensed with the LGPL. Furthermore, the vast majority of software packaged with Flatpak is free and open source software. https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak
  - neilv 1y ago
    No, I'm saying that you are making the advocacy mistake of using the term "free software".
    - marcus_holmes 1y ago
      I don't understand this. The software is free. But calling it "free software" is a mistake? And I don't understand the advocacy angle. Is any reference to "free" or "open" in any tech-related conversation automatically advocacy (even if the author did not intend to be an advocate for it)? Genuinely curious. Apologies if it doesn't read like genuine curiosity, I am genuinely curious.
      - FergusArgyll 1y ago
        Maybe they're confusing it with snaps?
      - neilv 1y ago
        There are specific philosophies and missions behind various kinds of software for which you might have access to the source code. The most formalized and principled original one, was unfortunately named "free software". (Where RMS expects to be able to explain that it doesn't mean "you don't have to pay money for it" like everyone already thought, but he wants it to actually means "free as in freedom". And he imagines having this conversation, and people being intrigued by the wordplay, etc.) Of course what happened is that everyone wanted stuff without paying money for it, which is fine, but most people never learned the principles behind the various philosophies, nor why they are that way. Installing a Linux-based software distro is the same as downloading a freebie "community version" of software decidedly not in the same spirit, is the same as downloading a cracked version -- it's all just "free". A related thing happened with the Internet, in a sense. The early people tended to be egalitarian and principled, and actively onboarded new people into the culture, etc. But when the dotcom gold rush happened, most of that was quickly swept aside. And most of what was already known and taught about cooperative online behavior was never even learned.
sgc 1y ago
In the spirit of conversation I will give you my take on this. Things I hate: Flatpak, Snaps, Docker containers, SystemD (different I know, but worth a mention due to the strong emotions nonetheless). Obviously too big a topic to talk about everything, but one common theme in all of them is they are often presented as the only way to do things by the developers that use them. The projects that use them tend to be harder to customize than they should be - sometimes much harder. Some of them, like Snaps and SystemD, get shoved down my throat so I hate them with a smouldering hate! And I won't use Ubuntu or derivatives any more. If you want to make a derivative distro, use Debian, use Arch, use openSuse, use RedHat. I don't love it when I see so many projects on github where the project is a docker image or a flatpak - instead of writing an app that I can directly install on at least some flavor of Linux, with an optional wrapper / container / package. Of course I understand why its done, but it does feel a bit antithetical to the spirit of open source if I have to do a ton of arcane work to decouple your project from these containers (all of which have obvious downsides as well as upsides) just to use it directly in an OS - which is ultimately where all this type of software runs. Why write beautiful or useful software, and lock it in a box? Technically, of course it remains open source. Yes, I can probably laboriously take it out of the box. No, locking it in the box in the first place is not as effectively open as if it had never been placed only there in the first place. Developers who want to do this are totally free to do so - just it will rub me wrong and I won't appreciate their work nearly as much. That is a trade off I presume they know they are making for many users, so to each his own. Practically? I have opted to avoid all flatpaks and snaps, and to only use appimages - to avoid having a variety of these tools with their variety of performance, maintenance, and security concerns to deal with on my system. I chose appimage because snaps are terrible and I much prefer the fuller inclusion of dependencies in an appimage compared to flatpaks just duplicating what a repository already does - and sharing dependencies between apps. I only use appimage if I really need a piece of software and there is no other packaging available. Similarly, I only use docker off my main device, but there are a few projects that require me to use it. I will always prefer an LXC or a VM first if I can. That's my own little world. I know it doesn't matter. But I would guess it fits pretty close to the sentiment and practice of a lot of people.
- the__alchemist 1y ago

j45 1y ago

People don’t seem to understand the world doesn’t have to accept a solely form of packaging - theirs. Flatpak might not be for me, it certainly helps get some beginners to Linux going. If they outgrow it, that’s great, or maybe they never need to.

neilv 1y ago

Calling it (edit: using the term) "free software" is a great example of utterly failing to promote your own principles, and stabbing the entire mission in the face. Let's try to repurpose an incredibly widely used pre-existing term, that means almost the opposite of the essence of our entire mission, to mean our mission. And every time people tell us that's moronic, we double down. As we continue to watch people somehow totally miss the point of the mission, but surely the fact that we're mind-bogglingly self-sabotaging at advocacy can't have anything to do with that. We should totally keep stabbing ourselves in the face. IMHO, it is one of the most shameful failures of marketing of the last century.

TheFreim 1y ago
Flatpak is unambiguously and undeniably free and open source software and the fact that you think it isn't demonstrates that you have been misinformed. The Flatpak project is licensed with the LGPL. Furthermore, the vast majority of software packaged with Flatpak is free and open source software. https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak
- neilv 1y ago
  No, I'm saying that you are making the advocacy mistake of using the term "free software".
  - marcus_holmes 1y ago
    I don't understand this. The software is free. But calling it "free software" is a mistake? And I don't understand the advocacy angle. Is any reference to "free" or "open" in any tech-related conversation automatically advocacy (even if the author did not intend to be an advocate for it)? Genuinely curious. Apologies if it doesn't read like genuine curiosity, I am genuinely curious.
    - FergusArgyll 1y ago
      Maybe they're confusing it with snaps?
    - neilv 1y ago
      There are specific philosophies and missions behind various kinds of software for which you might have access to the source code. The most formalized and principled original one, was unfortunately named "free software". (Where RMS expects to be able to explain that it doesn't mean "you don't have to pay money for it" like everyone already thought, but he wants it to actually means "free as in freedom". And he imagines having this conversation, and people being intrigued by the wordplay, etc.) Of course what happened is that everyone wanted stuff without paying money for it, which is fine, but most people never learned the principles behind the various philosophies, nor why they are that way. Installing a Linux-based software distro is the same as downloading a freebie "community version" of software decidedly not in the same spirit, is the same as downloading a cracked version -- it's all just "free". A related thing happened with the Internet, in a sense. The early people tended to be egalitarian and principled, and actively onboarded new people into the culture, etc. But when the dotcom gold rush happened, most of that was quickly swept aside. And most of what was already known and taught about cooperative online behavior was never even learned.

sgc 1y ago

In the spirit of conversation I will give you my take on this. Things I hate: Flatpak, Snaps, Docker containers, SystemD (different I know, but worth a mention due to the strong emotions nonetheless). Obviously too big a topic to talk about everything, but one common theme in all of them is they are often presented as the only way to do things by the developers that use them. The projects that use them tend to be harder to customize than they should be - sometimes much harder. Some of them, like Snaps and SystemD, get shoved down my throat so I hate them with a smouldering hate! And I won't use Ubuntu or derivatives any more. If you want to make a derivative distro, use Debian, use Arch, use openSuse, use RedHat. I don't love it when I see so many projects on github where the project is a docker image or a flatpak - instead of writing an app that I can directly install on at least some flavor of Linux, with an optional wrapper / container / package. Of course I understand why its done, but it does feel a bit antithetical to the spirit of open source if I have to do a ton of arcane work to decouple your project from these containers (all of which have obvious downsides as well as upsides) just to use it directly in an OS - which is ultimately where all this type of software runs. Why write beautiful or useful software, and lock it in a box? Technically, of course it remains open source. Yes, I can probably laboriously take it out of the box. No, locking it in the box in the first place is not as effectively open as if it had never been placed only there in the first place. Developers who want to do this are totally free to do so - just it will rub me wrong and I won't appreciate their work nearly as much. That is a trade off I presume they know they are making for many users, so to each his own. Practically? I have opted to avoid all flatpaks and snaps, and to only use appimages - to avoid having a variety of these tools with their variety of performance, maintenance, and security concerns to deal with on my system. I chose appimage because snaps are terrible and I much prefer the fuller inclusion of dependencies in an appimage compared to flatpaks just duplicating what a repository already does - and sharing dependencies between apps. I only use appimage if I really need a piece of software and there is no other packaging available. Similarly, I only use docker off my main device, but there are a few projects that require me to use it. I will always prefer an LXC or a VM first if I can. That's my own little world. I know it doesn't matter. But I would guess it fits pretty close to the sentiment and practice of a lot of people.

the__alchemist 1y ago