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Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

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Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#121

Post by rlpb »

jwlake wrote: post #93
berkes wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On latest LTS (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS) the apt version is simply a transitional package. It installs the snap for you. It says so on the description directly next to the name: "Transitional package - chromium-browser -> chromium snap" There only for people upgrading, so they are not suddenly surprised seeing their browser gone.

Just seems like an unintended consequences confusing situation. I think a pretty rational policy would to _never_ have an apt package install a snap package. Moving to snap is a breaking change, effectively, so you have to bite the bullet at some point. Mixing your distribution systems with references to each other seems like a recipe for confusion and anger. And it looks like they got the expected outcome.

I believe the reasoning is that Ubuntu users do not care about the technical mechanism used to ship the software that comes with Ubuntu.

I mean: clearly some people do care, given that that this thread exists. I think you'll find that they aren't your typical Ubuntu user though.

Users who do care are quite capable of adjusting their configuration, and Ubuntu doesn't get in the way of that (configure apt not to install snapd ever, and it won't).

This is only an issue for users who want to push their political opinions on to other Ubuntu users.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#122

Post by commoner »

kd913 wrote: post #97
commoner wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, from an external perspective having worked with bzr and launchpad, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a bunch of aspects there that would make opensourcing a nightmare. If Canonical, as a Linux company, is not willing to spend the effort to open source their software, then Snap can continue to be rejected by Linux distributions. Canonical's most obvious reason for keeping the Snap server closed source is…

You haven't really at all explained any justifiable reason for Canonical to open source it. You still haven't argued at all the resource aspects which are I think the primary motivator here. Canonical has done this experiment precisely in the past, and we see the results of nobody operating their own launchpad instance. Nobody contributing back. That experience probably trumps all of this goodwill and opinions from t…

> You haven't really at all explained any justifiable reason for Canonical to open source it.

I've explained why it would be in the users' interest for Canonical to open source the Snap store: it reduces vendor lock-in and allows the users to enjoy the benefits of open source software (the ability to use, study, share, and improve the software with no restrictions).

Whether open sourcing the Snap server benefits Canonical is irrelevant to the users.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#124

Post by BruiseLee »

curt15 wrote: post #48
kd913 wrote: post #12

The reason for why the backend for the snap store hasn't been opensourced has been explained multiple times. Namely that it would be expensive to open source it with little benefit in return. Canonical already spent a large amount of investment opensourcing launchpad and nobody other than them operate it. Mainly because the majority of the costs are for operating an instance which most other distros aren't willing to…

>The reason for why the backend for the snap store hasn't been opensourced has been explained multiple times. Namely that it would be expensive to open source it with little benefit in return. Perhaps a business reason left unsaid is that an open source snap store would undermine Canonical's paid "enterprise edition" snap store. Why would an organization pay $30000 ( https://ubuntu.com/internet-of-things ) for a priv…

And that is exactly why it would be very expensive to open source it. All this revenue ($30000 * number of paying organizations) would then be gone.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#125

Post by rdschouw »

kd913 wrote: post #12

The reason for why the backend for the snap store hasn't been opensourced has been explained multiple times. Namely that it would be expensive to open source it with little benefit in return. Canonical already spent a large amount of investment opensourcing launchpad and nobody other than them operate it. Mainly because the majority of the costs are for operating an instance which most other distros aren't willing to…

I do not think anyone disputes Ubuntu's goals or intentions.

The problem is that the snap store is managed by Ubuntu without any community oversight.

By not releasing source code to the store, other distributions cannot create their own.

These are the reasons what is holding snap back for broader adoption.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#126

Post by ghostwriter »

superkuh wrote: post #28
aphexairlines wrote: post #10

This seems like a problem: > Snap packages are effectively black-boxes; they cannot be reproduced independently as the packaging data is controlled by the package maker alone. One of the nice properties of debian packages is the ability to `apt-get source` and build it locally. Would be a shame to lose that. Maybe Nix and Guix can provide the best of both worlds here: self-contained software but reproducible builds t…

Any distro where you have to write a little haskell-ish 30 line script to set up an environment just to be able to start compiling (or even running!) things is not going to be widely popular for desktop use.

For desktop use, any shortcut icon on a desktop would just be a wrapper script for `nix-shell -p --run `

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#127

Post by kelnos »

pjfin123 wrote: post #84

If desktop Linux is ever going to be mainstream there needs to be an easy to use "app store" where users can use a GUI to install apps which need to be sandboxed like on a mobile phone with defined permissions. Snapcraft is way ahead of Flatpak on this and the current Ubuntu setup works well. On Ubuntu you can go to the Ubuntu software app (gui) search for software and it blends apt results with snap results. This re…

> If desktop Linux is ever going to be mainstream there needs to be an easy to use "app store" where users can use a GUI to install apps which need to be sandboxed like on a mobile phone with defined permissions.

Curious... do you think that the world has moved on from the "download from website and run installer" model? Obviously that has serious drawbacks from a security perspective, but up until less than a decade ago, that was the only way to get software on Windows and macOS, and they were perfectly mainstream.

I think the majority of users out there don't understand sandboxing or permissions models or why they are useful. While I think those are the users that probably benefit from them the most, it doesn't follow that we need these things before average users will embrace a particular platform.

> A lot of people are mad at Canonical for not open sourcing the backend but no one seems to be offering to build one.

You mention Flatpak and then two sentences later claim this?

I think maybe you're just missing the point. I have been using Linux as my daily driver for a good two decades now. I don't care one bit about Linux being a mainstream desktop distro. Sure, if it was, new (and even not-so-new) hardware would get better support, and that would be a win. But getting that is not a fair trade off if what we have to accept in return is a closed-source, walled-garden software delivery model. Hard pass, no thanks.

For the most part, the only people who really care about "the year of the Linux desktop" are people trying to build a business around desktop Linux. Those aren't the sorts of people I want making decisions like this, but, unfortunately, they're often the kinds of people who have the ability to force these things on the community.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#128

Post by alyandon »

andrewshadura wrote: post #82
kd913 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the PPA. https://launchpad.net/%7Ewebupd8team/+archive/ubuntu/java For years it has been recommended as the mechanism for installing Java on Ubuntu installs.

Why would anyone use this instead of distro packages?

The short story is - developers typically need to target more than one version of Java and the long lifetime of LTS releases don't line of up very well with that.

Canonical historically provided a single "system" version of Java (meaning any system packages that depends on Java depended on this package) which meant that that was the version of Java that you got with Ubuntu XX.XX - even for LTS releases which had a 5 year lifespan.

Ubuntu 16.04 - which is still in support came with openjdk-7 and Canonical refused to provide an openjdk-8 package for it despite Java 8 being the prevalent development platform from late 2016 onwards and despite numerous requests to do so. No one was expecting Canonical to replace openjdk-7 with openjdk-8 - they only wanted to be able to install openjdk-8 along side the existing openjdk-7 system Java.

Ubuntu 18.04 - slightly different scenario but still the same problem - openjdk-8 and openjdk-11 are available but that still doesn't cover all development use cases.

Thus, people add the PPA and install the openjdk from there because someone currently is doing the work of keeping the PPA up to date.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#129

Post by mschuetz »

pjfin123 wrote: post #84

If desktop Linux is ever going to be mainstream there needs to be an easy to use "app store" where users can use a GUI to install apps which need to be sandboxed like on a mobile phone with defined permissions. Snapcraft is way ahead of Flatpak on this and the current Ubuntu setup works well. On Ubuntu you can go to the Ubuntu software app (gui) search for software and it blends apt results with snap results. This re…

I wish every OS had comprehensive sandboxing so that you could just run any untrusted and potentially mallicious executable from the web and enable and disable features at will.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#130

Post by commoner »

kd913 wrote: post #112
michaelmrose wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we not pretend that the single source nature is anything other than a money grab? It's pretty clear that all you have to do to ensure grandma doesn't add sources is make adding it require the cli.

You can watch the discussions from Popey, Martin Wimpress etc... It's pretty clear from their perspective that they built the tech from users/devs first approach. Do you really think Canonical is looking for money over here? If so do please precisely explain in the short-term how exactly you think they are gonna achieve that. Do you think they are suddenly going to be able to dominate the entire 100% Linux desktop so…

The FOSS community opposes Snap because its server is closed source and forces vendor lock-in to Canonical, among other reasons. This is fairly simple to understand and not "disingenuous".
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