Re: [Evolution] downloads page

[Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam whitemice org>]

On Tue, 2013-08-27 at 15:10 +0200, Alberto Ruiz wrote:
> Is less than ideal, it means a lot of trouble for application
> developers:
> a) If you write an app, you have to either learn how to package your app
> for every distro or convince them to package and maintain the package
> for you. In practice it means months before your app can hit the users.
> Compare that to Mac, Windows, Android or iOS, where application
> developers can go live and distribute their apps in day 1.

This is a downside.  But the same *does* apply to other platforms.  You
just learn Android packaging as part of Android development; it is no
less or more documented and opaque.

And depending on you app you may skip in entirely.  I distribute Python
applications as EGGS.  They install as "pip install {appname}", bam,
done.  Other categories of apps provide a similar 'round about'.

> b) You can't install parallel versions of your app, for example, if I
> want a newer version of firefox I have to uninstall the older version.
> This means that power users have no access to beta versions and
> therefore _everybody_ hits more bugs on release time.

Most packages are relocatable.  That works pretty well.  But now we've
jumped from "user" to "power user", which is a bit of a context change.

> c) You need to upgrade your whole system to update a single app, to
> access newer versions of your apps, you need a newer version of your
> OS... which is a ridiculous requirement if all that you want is to get
> rid of a bug or access to a new feature in a single app like LibreOffice
> or evolution.

I upgrade Evolution & LibreOffice all the time - without an OS upgrade.
This claim is wildly exaggerated.  I am running a very-near-current
LibreOffice 4.1 ... on openSUSE 12.1.   Installation was as painless as
a couple clicks.

> d) A package is by definition a part of your system, how on earth is
> making end user apps a part of your operating system an ideal situation?

THEY ARE NOT PART OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM.  That statement is FALSE.
They are packaged by the distribution, that is all.  DISTRIBUTION != OS.

> RPMs have pre/post remove hooks with root privileges, a broken package
> can mess up your whole system.

And this differs from installing on other Operating Systems how?  You
need Administrative access to install all but the most trivial
applications.  The exception is mobile devices which are a different can
of worms entirely, and inherit some limitations from that can [speaking
of having to upgrade the entire OS to access new features...., there is
no packaging nirvana there.]

>  This means that every application
> developer/packager needs to suddenly become a system integrator with all
> the responsibilities and knowledge that comes with it.

Packagers are indeed System Integrators.

> e) This situation actively prevents any closed source app from being a
> well integrated app in the Linux ecosystem, which is bad for everyone
> that cares about free software/open source as it restrains the size of
> our potential user base.

I use several closed source applications.  They provided either packages
are installers.

> In any case, if you think that the current situation is ideal for you,
> then I am happy for you, you're just not the kind of person that suffers
> from all the issues stated above; but the fact that it does work for you
> doesn't mean that it is ideal for everybody.

It may not be ideal for all situations, which is not to say that it is
'broken'.

-- 
Adam Tauno Williams <mailto:awilliam whitemice org> GPG D95ED383
Systems Administrator, Python Developer, LPI / NCLA