Re: xdg-app discussions at the GNOME DX hackfest

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On fre, 2015-01-30 at 12:09 +0000, Alberto Ruiz wrote:

> 2015-01-30 11:28 GMT+00:00 Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>:

>         
>         Therefore, it might be premature to introduce bundling before
>         sandboxing has matured, and there might be value in linking
>         xdg-app
>         and sandboxing, so that xdg-app is introduced with mandatory
>         sandboxing. At the very least, careful thought needs to be
>         given to
>         the implications of xdg-app for sandboxing, before the former
>         is
>         released into the wild.
>  
>
>
> I would say that the logic should be exactly the opposite, I don't
> think we can realistically provide all the hooks that most apps need
> all at once and delaying widespread adoption of bundles because of
> that seems like a net lose. We want people using the bundling
> mechanism ASAP so that we can start getting them into the toolchain,
> then we can learn what kind of tooling is missing to get them to
> "upgrade" into sandboxing. 

I share your view here. I think it will be a long time before a
substantial amount of applications will be converted to be sandboxable
(see e.g. the OSX sandboxing failure, where many apps are unable to use
it). And if apps would need *both* conversion to a new packaging format
*and* massive rewrites to be able to use the advantages that xdg-app
gives them I'm pretty sure that most app authors will ignore it.

That said, I agree with the worry that allan has. Sandboxing is going to
require app changes, and its going to be painful, for little direct gain
*for the authors*. The main gain is for the users. Apple manages this by
dangling the "app store" apple in front of the developers. We also has
this option, but we don't have the same strength (millions of paying
customers) that Apple has.


-- 
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 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
       alexl redhat com            alexander larsson gmail com 
He's an all-American drug-addicted Green Beret on the run. She's a 
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