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The problem is that now you have to package for N distros. And the people who run the distro may not want to spend time on it, so you have to do it yourself.

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Arnavion 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It doesn't have to be gated by "the people who run the distro". I started packaging a few pieces of software for a distro I use because I wanted to use that software, and I don't "run" the distros in any capacity. Package maintainers aren't born that way, they become that way by volunteering, just like most everything in Linux.

If you don't have even one user willing to do that for the distro they use, you probably weren't going to have users on that distro anyway.

	▲	troyvit 8 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Package maintainers aren't born that way, they become that way by volunteering, just like most everything in Linux. I feel like there's a constant tug of war on this issue. If you leave it up to app developers then they have to package their app for N distros. If you leave it up to the distro maintainers then they have to compile N apps for their distro. I don't envy either group given how different distros are and how varied apps are in quality, methodology, etc. I look at Podman. In my opinion it could be (could have been?) a huge disruptor, but its RedHat (or Fedora or CentOS or whatever the hell those guys do now) versions are way higher than versions for other distributions, which creates for me (just a home user) an interoperability problem between all my different Linux boxes. RedHat if anybody has the resources to fix this but I guess they'd rather try to use it as a way to force adoption of their distro? I don't even know. Both the apps and the distros are volunteer-heavy. App packaging is a big job for either side. I'm still hopeful that Flatpak can help that job
	▲	Ferret7446 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		That's a massive waste of resources and time. If you are unwilling to use tools like Flatpak, then that limits what distros you can make. e.g., in a world without Flatpak, only distros with X users can exist. In a world with Flatpak, distros with X/10 users can exist. Another way to think about it: if you want to make/use your own distro, then using Flatpak will cut down the amount of work you have to do by some large multiple. You're free to not use it, just like you're free to install custom electrical sockets in your house and make custom adaptors for every single appliance you buy. Standardization/centralization exists for a reason.

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palata 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You're saying the exact opposite of the original point, which is: you should not package for distros, distros should package for themselves. You just distribute your sources.

You are a good candidate to package for your distro, so there's that. And then for a random distro, if nobody feels like packaging for it, then it's just not there. Either there is not enough interest in your project, or there is not enough interest in the distro itself.

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curt15 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> distros should package for themselves. You just distribute your sources.

Is Devault basically saying that the application developer should just throw their source code over the wall and hope that other parties notice and figure out how to build it correctly? I would find that model of software distribution unsatisfying as a developer because merely distributing a source tarball and leaving the rest to middlemen makes it difficult for me to predict how my users will experience the final product. Even if my product is fully open source and free to fork, it's my reputation on the line when things don't work as intended. I would prefer to establish a more direct relationship with my users; to personally build and test my software in all environments that I support; and to hear directly from users whenever they experience problems.

	▲	skydhash 8 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Even if my product is fully open source and free to fork, it's my reputation on the line when things don't work as intended I think that everyone who is worrying about that wants to apply corporate thinking on the open source model. Meaning they want to be a special thing where everything is supposed to be interchangeable. Just yesterday, I was compiling a program that hard depends on the GNU C library for just 2 functions and not even critical one. To be fair, the author said that they only test on Debian. While the linux world may be fragmented, the true differences are mostly minimal (systemd vs other init system, glibc vs musl, networking manager,…) So it’s possible to decouple yourself from these concerns if you want to. But often the developer hard depends on decision made by their preferred distro team, and create a complicated build script that only works there.
	▲	palata 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I don't know what Devault says, but here is my opinion: do not ship something you don't understand/test/use yourself. Distros should not package random open source projects they don't use/understand, and developers should not package their project for distros they don't use/understand. For both, it's like shipping untested code and the conclusion is always going to be "you should all run the same system I do" or "we should all have the exact same system, let's implement Flatpak". Developers should package their project for the distros they support (often that's just Ubuntu). Random people should package the open source projects they want to use in their distro of choice (the more popular the distro, the higher the chance that someone else has done it already). All that under the supervision of distro maintainers.

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troupo 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> distros should package for themselves. You just distribute your sources.

That's how you ended up with Erlang being split into 20+ packages on Ubuntu/Debian in the past. Because it was packaged by people who know little about erlang, and had too much time on their hands probably.

And that is the main issue: you want distro maintainers to compile and package every single pieces of software under the sun, but they can't possibly know every piece of software, how it works, or how it's supposed to work. Times that by the number of distros.

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palata 8 hours ago | parent [-]

> you want distro maintainers to compile and package every single pieces of software under the sun

No. I want people who will actually use the package to package the software they need, and distro maintainer to supervise that.

> Because it was packaged by people who know little about erlang

Yep, people who won't use Erlang shouldn't package Erlang. But on the other hand, developers who won't use Erlang on platform X shouldn't package Erlang on platform X.

The "we absolutely need flatpak because otherwise it fundamentally doesn't work" philosophy is, to me, very close to saying "we must consolidate everything under one single OS. Everybody should use the exact same thing otherwise it doesn't work". That's not what I want. I want to have freedom, and the cost of it is that I may have to package stuff from time to time.

If you don't want to contribute to your distro, choose a super popular distro where everything is already packaged (and used!). Or use macOS. Or use Windows. You don't get to complain about Alpine Linux not having a package you want: you chose Alpine, that was part of the deal.

	▲	skydhash 7 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Alpine is a great litmus test for programs that unnecessarily depends on glibc and systemd. More often than not, it’s easy to take the arch build script, and create a package for alpine. When that fails, it’s usually for the above reason.
	▲	troupo an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> I want people who will actually use the package to package the software they need, and distro maintainer to supervise that. Erm... Your original comment said "you should not package for distros, distros should package for themselves. You just distribute your sources." > Yep, people who won't use Erlang shouldn't package Erlang. But on the other hand, developers who won't use Erlang on platform X shouldn't package Erlang on platform X. So... Who's gonna package it if you say that distros should package it? > The "we absolutely need flatpak because otherwise it fundamentally doesn't work" philosophy is, to me, very close to saying "we must consolidate everything under one single OS. Bullshit. What you advocate for is "why bother with ease of use and convenience, everyone should learn how to compile and package everything from scratch" > If you don't want to contribute to your distro The user of a package doesn't necessarily know how to package something, and shouldn't need to.