Re: About application distribution in GNU/Linux

[Charles Johnson]

>De: Alan Mead <address@hidden>
>Enviado: lunes, 30 de mayo de 2016 11:07 p. m.
>Para: Charles Johnson; address@hidden; address@hidden
>Asunto: Re: About application distribution in GNU/Linux
> 
>Charles,
>
>
>The place to discuss this with developers is pspp-dev.

Thank you Alan... I know, however, this discussion is for PSPP and GNU/Linux 
users that usually installed PSPP and visualize the problems they have had in 
time. 

>The PSPP devs can speak for themselves, but I think that they would/will say 
>that packaging PSPP is now what >they do.  So, if you or someone else wanted 
>to package PSPP using flagpak, I think they would welcome that >and support it 
>by answering questions.   But the only official release PSPP makes is to drop 
>a source tarball onto >the GNU FTP server.

Of course, that's the best present system and results in additional work they 
have to perform some volunteers to keep these packages in some distributions. 
The idea is that if a new packaging system takes into account this problem 
would be partially solved. I do not pretend a sudden change, but it can be a 
very effective alternative to distribute PSPP in GNU/Linux.

>Regarding flatpak, I'm not familiar with it, but it looks like a container 
>system. Is that right?  What specific >problem would flatpak solve that is 
>plaguing PSPP?

Flatpack looks like a container, but it is not. See: 
http://flatpak.org/faq.html#Is_Flatpak_a_container_technology_
As the authors say, Flatpack is more related to sandboxed applications. 

In addition to the consequences of having an isolated application of the 
system, this would reduce the minimum installation requirements (dependencies 
in general) would be distributed as a whole, ensuring greater control. This 
would allow new and stable use more libraries that would solve problems (eg. 
GTK + to use a new widget), upgrades that would benefit all users to be more 
direct, easy installation by the user, etc. Of course, not everything is 
positive, since for example increase the weight of the installation package 
among other things, but brings more benefits.

CJT