Free desktop application distribution and installation

[Matthias Klumpp]

2014-12-16 23:09 GMT+01:00 Thomas Kluyver <thomas at kluyver.me.uk>:
> On 16 December 2014 at 13:06, Matthias Klumpp <matthias at tenstral.net> wrote:
>>
>> so you would force the app
>> author to write a huge metadata file
>
>
> As I see it, many app authors are already figuring out the necessary
> metadata for different distros, whether they scatter it around in packaging
> files for different systems, or write it in human readable form in their
> docs ("...on Ubuntu, apt-get install blah..."). So I'm thinking of a way to
> store that information in a standardised, machine readable format so
> dependencies will install programmatically.

We had that already - it was called "PackageKit Catalog". Support for
it was dropped from GNOME a year ago, while it was removed from
PackageKit with the 1.0 release. Reason for it was to kill off unused
features.
So, defining a machine-readable format to install packages is the
easiest part - convincing people to use it and distributions to
implement it is the difficult thing.

> [...]
>
> I think there's a philosophical difference in our approaches. You are trying
> to rethink application installation from the ground up. I'm very glad that
> someone is doing that, but I'm personally thinking about how to
> incrementally improve one of the common ways to distribute applications at
> present.

We probably need both things. But you are right, Alexanders and my
approach currently is "redesign from the ground up", and I think doing
that is "the right thing"(tm) long-term.

> This is not quite what I suggested in my first email, but my
> thinking has evolved during this discussion. This shift is partly because
> I've seen that projects like Listaller and 0install have already tried
> something much closer to my initial proposal, and do not seem to have got
> much traction (as in, I haven't seen applications recommending installation
> using such tools).

The most-used tool at time is 0install, e.g. there are Blender games
shipped with it. But unfortunately, none of the 3rd-party
app-installers gained much traction yet. The main issue is the obvious
henn-and-egg issue (no packages => no need to install the installer,
no preinstalled installer => no packages). Also, IMHO the lack of
integration with the base-system plays a key role, and the additional
effort many packaging systems require (from the user to install a
3rd-party solution, and from the developer e.g. in making the
application relocatable).
But I am sure that this time we will get a solution for the
app-distribution issue. There are a lot of cool new ideas around and
people who can put a lot of weight behind the respective projects to
make adoption easy and reach a high level of integration (I am looking
at the systemd crew and GNOME here ^^).

> I suspect that, whatever the technical merits of new
> installer systems, getting adoption is very hard because of the catch 22 -
> application authors have little incentive to use it until there are many
> users, and users have little incentive to use it until there are many
> applications installable with it.

Exactly!

Happy new year and have a great day!
    Matthias