Flathub's future

[Aleix Pol]

On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 8:25 AM Alexander Larsson <alexl at redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Jan 25, 2020 at 12:12 AM Aleix Pol <aleixpol at kde.org> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Flathub,
> > It's been a while since we have been collaborating from KDE with
> > different aspects of Flathub.
> >
> > I recently had a few conversations regarding Flathub with both KDE and
> > Gnome members, I'd say it's probably time we have an open discussion
> > about what it is and its end goals.
> >
> > We can probably all agree that application distribution has been one
> > of the most frustrating bits of Linux over the years and Flathub is
> > trying to figure it out. Now while it's been working reasonably well,
> > it's also time to look into the governance and overall future vision
> > of the project to collectively assess it's what we want and how to
> > make sure it lasts over the years. I personally have no idea which
> > forum is responsible for it at the moment, which I'd say is quite
> > telling.
>
> The lack of forum specifically for flathub has been kind of a problem.
> For example, when we have made changes in how the infrastructure works
> we have not been able to get the message to packagers in a great way.
> There exists a flathub-admins list, but that is really low traffic
> sysadmin stuff only. Some discussion can happen in github issues and
> suchlike, but this isn't a great way to communicate, nor is it having
> the right reach. This is why we started the flathub discourse server
> which we hope can be used for things like this. Its only just recently
> been stood up and not widely used yet though.
>
> > While I probably have some thoughts on the matter, I'm sure I'm not
> > the only one. I'd suggest having a call sometime soon to discuss
> > governance and vision.
>
> I'm fine with having a call, although maybe it should have a bit more
> detailed agenda than "discuss the future" so that people can prepare a
> bit for it.
>
>
> --
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>  Alexander Larsson                                Red Hat, Inc
>        alexl at redhat.com         alexander.larsson at gmail.com
>

Hey Alex, Alan, all,
I'm glad to read there's interest in having such a discussion.

Overall, my impression is that we should be discussing:
- Vision
what is flathub's future? is it a great way to distribute software in
linux? is it to be _the_ way to get apps on linux? Is it just desktop?
or mobile too?

- Governance
who decides? what does flathub leadership look like? My impression is
that so far it's been more of a thing of whoever was doing the work,
who codes decides. Tied with a lack of shared vision it's taken us to
where we are today, but I'm not sure how sustainable it is over time.

- Funding model
So far it's been some individual donations at the start and mostly the
Gnome Foundation putting money there, as far as I know. And what I
know is because of casual conversations.
It would make sense to set up a funding model (or even business model)
to make sure it can stay over time. Assuming that the vision is to
stay strong over time, which I'm not sure either.

Would it make sense to put together a call revolving these 3 main topics?

Aleix