AppStream Ideas and Thoughts

[Ben Finney]

Jos Poortvliet <jospoortvliet at gmail.com> writes:

> Now I might be mistaken and I know it might be fighting windmills but
> I thought 'we' (= FOSS community) didn't like to make it too easy for
> users to install stuff from outside the safe distro repositories?

I think you're mistaken. Working for people's software freedom doesn't
involve a dislike of making things easy.

There is a finite amount of effort we can put in, though, and some ends
are prioritised over others.

> For security, stability and performance reasons?

I don't know what “performance reasons” has to do with it, but security
and stability are principles that guide efforts to operating system
distributions and the associated repositories and tools.

> In other words, a cross-distro packaging format means - what is the
> value of distributions, how can we share libraries, how do we
> guarantee security updates in dependencies, stuff like that starts
> biting.

If “what is the value of distributions” starts “biting”, I don't see
what the dilemma is. If they're no longer needed, they should get out of
the way.

Sharing libraries and other software, providing reliable security
updates, generally making sure all the pieces of the operating system
continue to work together as a whole – those are all valuable aspects of
distributions that I don't see going away any time soon.

> Isn't THAT the problem with cross-distro, always-working app
> installers like Klik?

No, as I understand it the main problem with such app installers is they
aren't always-working with the rest of the operating system.

-- 
 \        “The difference between religions and cults is determined by |
  `\                      how much real estate is owned.” —Frank Zappa |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney
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