Xdg-App Announced For Desktop App Sandboxing

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Xdg-App Announced For Desktop App Sandboxing

Alexander Larsson has formally announced xdg-app today as the desktop app sandboxing system for GNOME environments...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Xdg-App-Sandboxing-System

[Maxjen]

Lennart posted some documents (here and here) that describes some ideas on how this could work, and we're using many of the core ideas from that.

Great to see that there is a shared vision behind this where many different pieces like kdbus and wayland all come together. I hope that this will result in a situation where it is super easy for developers to target all the different Linux distributions at once. That might go a long way to increase Linux adoption.

This was also interesting to me:

Many of the issues relevant for user apps are also interesting for webapps, i.e. on the server. Sandboxing, one-click install for webapps such as Wordpress is highly desirable.

I just imagined how awesome it would be if noobs like myself could easily set up a webserver, one-click install something like roundcube and be completely independent from things like gmail. I think in the coming years many people might want to have their own server to host their VR home world that is part of the VR metaverse. And if you have a server anyway, why not reuse it for webmail, cloud storage, etc?

[gens]

I hope that this will result in a situation where it is super easy for developers to target all the different Linux distributions at once.

where the fuck did this bullshit originate
who the fuck thinks that it is even remotely hard to target multiple linux distributions

[Maxjen]

where the fuck did this bullshit originate
who the fuck thinks that it is even remotely hard to target multiple linux distributions

If it's so easy then what's the point of the steam-runtime? And why are there a dozen of distribution specific packages for applications like skype? It's quite obvious to me that the current situation is far from ideal and the Gnome devs seem to agree.

[blackout23]

If it's so easy then what's the point of the steam-runtime? And why are there a dozen of distribution specific packages for applications like skype? It's quite obvious to me that the current situation is far from ideal and the Gnome devs seem to agree.

Hey you only have to release a source tarball and then hope that some CS students with too much free time will play package maintainer for you and package it for all the different distributions and fix all the distro specific problems. The users of your software might be locked out from the latest version, because of some random ass distro release cycles, but hey it's a great system that totally scales! /s

[Ericg]

where the fuck did this bullshit originate
who the fuck thinks that it is even remotely hard to target multiple linux distributions

The very fact that we still have multiple packaging formats speaks to the insanity of the Linux desktop for third parties. Different distros with different versions of libraries you want to target? More insanity.

[davcri]

Hey you only have to release a source tarball and then hope that some CS students with too much free time will play package maintainer for you and package it for all the different distributions and fix all the distro specific problems. The users of your software might be locked out from the latest version, because of some random ass distro release cycles, but hey it's a great system that totally scales! /s

LOL

Most of developers have the same point of view.
Desktop Linux ecosystem need some fresh ideas, and this is very interesting along with Ubuntu Snappy.

[gens]

The very fact that we still have multiple packaging formats speaks to the insanity of the Linux desktop for third parties. Different distros with different versions of libraries you want to target? More insanity.

firstly packaging doesnt matter
thats why you have /usr/local/ and .desktop files
for concrete examples look at savagexr, UT and all the GOG games

libraries, you have to pack with your program anyway
unless you expect everybody to never ever upgrade any library on their computer, ever
and thats why steam has a runtime with it
if you didn't target steam, you would just pack all the libraries you need with you

so no, its not hard to target all the linux distros
and it's not harder to target all the linux distros then it is to target windows
its a lot harder to target windows if you want your program to work on vista, 7, 8, 10


SO NO, IT IS NOT HARD TO RELEASE A PROGRAM FOR MULTIPLE DISTROS
AT ALL
STOP SPREADING THAT CRAP

[gens]

Hey you only have to release a source tarball and then hope that some CS students with too much free time will play package maintainer for you and package it for all the different distributions and fix all the distro specific problems. The users of your software might be locked out from the latest version, because of some random ass distro release cycles, but hey it's a great system that totally scales! /s

wow, you never made a package

basically you just make a script and thats it
if you think making a Docker image is a better idea, its not (and there are distros that do such things)

[nanonyme]

firstly packaging doesnt matter
thats why you have /usr/local/ and .desktop files
for concrete examples look at savagexr, UT and all the GOG games

libraries, you have to pack with your program anyway
unless you expect everybody to never ever upgrade any library on their computer, ever
and thats why steam has a runtime with it
if you didn't target steam, you would just pack all the libraries you need with you

so no, its not hard to target all the linux distros
and it's not harder to target all the linux distros then it is to target windows
its a lot harder to target windows if you want your program to work on vista, 7, 8, 10


SO NO, IT IS NOT HARD TO RELEASE A PROGRAM FOR MULTIPLE DISTROS
AT ALL
STOP SPREADING THAT CRAP

Have you ever actually been developing any Windows software? It's reasonably simple to support XP-Win8.1. You typically ship libraries you depend on and msvcrt versions are supported so long it's not even funny