KDE Plasma Leaning Towards Focusing On Flatpak Over AppImage/Snaps

[k1l_]

The KDE Gang doing its we hate Canonical dance again. Some would call it hatecrime and fakenews if the same came from Canonical Or Trump

who could have thought that KDE wants to use gnomes appinstaller with the half-dependency-hell.

Ubuntu had a similar approach with the click packages running, but they saw what the issues are. So they changed to snap Or are changing in Ubuntu Touch.

And you can change the repos for snaps. But most better believe to what they want to hear, since there must Not be something good from Canonical.

[Vistaus]

I really like Snap's syntax more than Flatpak's.

I also don't understand why packages installed via Flatpak also have to be run via Flatpak?

i.e.

flatpak run application

Seriously, just compare how you install the same package on Flatpak and Snap. Flatpak first:


flatpak --user remote-add --no-gpg-verify tutorial-repo repo

flatpak --user install tutorial-repo org.test.Hello


Snap:


snap install hello


How on earth is flatpak better?

According to http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/01/i...email-app-snap you also have to run snap run nameofapplication so it's the same as Flatpak in that regard.

[Inopia]

Depends on your definition of free. Is the code truly free if it comes with limitations about what can you do with it? (And no, I don't know the answer to that one myself.)

Source code isn't free if there are license restrictions on redistribution or distribution of modified copies like there was with Minix and QT. Minix was very literally non-free since the only way to legally get it was to buy it.

Of course these days both Minix and QT are both free as they are available under BSD and LGPLv3 respectively.

[bug77]

Source code isn't free if there are license restrictions on redistribution or distribution of modified copies...

My point exactly. I don't know of any license that doesn't restrict redistribution and/or modification in one way or another. I think the only truly free code these days would be one that doesn't come with a license?

[FishPls]

According to http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/01/i...email-app-snap you also have to run snap run nameofapplication so it's the same as Flatpak in that regard.

According to the official Snap documentation that doesn't seem true: https://snapcraft.io/docs/core/usage

Each snap might include multiple related commands, with a default command that has the same name as the snap itself. Additional commands are prefixed with the snap name:
$ hello

Hello, world!

[Inopia]

My point exactly. I don't know of any license that doesn't restrict redistribution and/or modification in one way or another. I think the only truly free code these days would be one that doesn't come with a license?

Here is a list of licenses that allow redistribution and distribution of modified copies with only minor requirements: https://opensource.org/licenses

If you feel that they are too restrictive to be called free you have uncommonly high standards and should use some other word, for example public domain, so that others don't get confused about what you're talking about.

[Citan]

My point exactly. I don't know of any license that doesn't restrict redistribution and/or modification in one way or another. I think the only truly free code these days would be one that doesn't come with a license?

Ok. So... Quick reminder about licences here.
It all depends on how you understand "free".

At its source, the "free" as in "free license" promoted by the FSF had to be understood as "code being freed forever from any tentative of appropriation". That is why the license was actually restricting the "freedom" of the user to protect the "freedom" of the code itself (like a self-living entity) by imposing any distribution of the work or any derivative to follow the same license ("copyleft" clause). To enforce this, the FSF also pushed a notion of "derivative work" that was as large as possible (like, just linking a class made a case of derivation) to try and spread "free software" as largely as possible.

The other original kind of license, "open source", designated software which you can access its constitutive code, but not necessarily be free to do whatever you wanted.
Then came the Open Source Initiative that gave the words a specific meaning, this time targeting the actual uses of the software, so "open source" became any license that, among others criterias, allowed redistribution of either code, or compiled, or both, under the terms of the actual license. Allowed, NOT impose.
That is why under the initial definitions, a "free software" was necessarily an "open source software" but the reverse wasn't true.

Things are very different nowadays.
FSF put some water into its wine, so now "derivative work" is understood in a more restrictive fashion, and some licenses without copyleft are still called "free software". Evolutions of GPL made the "near co-cost distribution" clause disappear.
Many companies try to promote their own definition of "free software" that would be in fact closer to open source software, in that client can access the code but has not total freedom to interact with it without paying something...
So for example, the LGPL is admitedly "free software", although it does not have the infamous copyleft clause.
Companies present as "free software" products that indeed provide free access to code, but require you to pay a fee to have the right to remove trademarks included in interface...

Honestly, it's exactly the same as with most "technical revolutions" such as "Cloud", "Big Data" and others. Once it reached critical mass in terms of popularity, any and everyone tried to adapt and push its own definition that served its interests better.

To give you one of the most "free" (as in "freedom to the user") licenses, check the FreeBSD: your only obligation is to keep the authorship of code you reuse, as well as exclusions of warranties. But nothing prevents you from using this code into a totally closed-source software for example.

And, beware: if you find any code that is available to download without any specific license attributed to it, it does NOT imply automatically that the author wanted to put it into public domain. That's the kind of shortcut that is not at all sourced by any law.
If there is no license, there, at best, you don't know what are the conditions of use. And the basis of intellectual property is that any permission must be given explicitely.
So, no license = no right legally. Of course, that you take any real risk or not by downloading is another matter entirely, unless you reuse it into a code you distribute publicly of course. ^^

[Awesomeness]

Perhaps you should link to something that conveys useful information if you want to back up an argument, not a dead link on a social media opinion board. All of the links I gave lead to actual original sources that back up each of my assertions. I think readers here are competent to judge for themselves who may be the bigger idiot.

Since you are too stupid, to follow the link yourself (in typical Canonical fanboy tradition), here's the content:

See what happened to Snap after Canonical announced cross-distro support
Arch Linux

• Last Updated: 2016-11-14
• Flagged out-of-date on 2017-01-04

Debian

• Actively maintained by Canonical

Fedora

• Last Build: 5 months ago
• Only for Fedora 23 and 24
• No support for Fedora 25
• No builds either on https://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages/snapd

openSUSE

• Changed: 7 months ago
• openSUSE_Leap_42.1: failed
• openSUSE_Leap_42.2: failed
• openSUSE_Tumbleweed: failed

[bug77]

Here is a list of licenses that allow redistribution and distribution of modified copies with only minor requirements: https://opensource.org/licenses

If you feel that they are too restrictive to be called free you have uncommonly high standards and should use some other word, for example public domain, so that others don't get confused about what you're talking about.

Ok. So... Quick reminder about licences here.
It all depends on how you understand "free".

That was my initial statement, too: it depends on how one defines "free". GNU's idea of free, for example, means available forever in all its forms, but users are certainly not allowed to do what they want with the code. More to the point, there are strings attached, even when those strings are justified and put in place for a good reason. With strings attached, "free" starts to mean a lot of things.
But we're just arguing semantics.

[Awesomeness]

Arch Linux https://www.archlinux.org/packages/c.../x86_64/snapd/

Last Updated: 2016-11-14

Flagged out-of-date on 2017-01-04

Debian https://packages.debian.org/sid/gola...core-snapd-dev

Actively maintained by Canonical

Fedora https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/zyga/snapcore/

Last Build: 5 months ago

Only for Fedora 23 and 24

No support for Fedora 25

No builds either on https://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages/snapd

openSUSE https://build.opensuse.org/package/s...snapcore-snapd

Changed: 7 months ago

openSUSE_Leap_42.1: failed

openSUSE_Leap_42.2: failed

openSUSE_Tumbleweed: failed