Is it really useful to pack all releases like Snap and Flatpak?

Is it really useful to pack all releases like Snap and Flatpak?
GuideThe new Linux technology like Lightbot naturally raises the question: what are the advantages/disadvantages of an independent package? Does this give us a better Linux system? What is the motive behind it?

In-depth observation of the next-generation packaging format penetration into the Linux Ecosystem

Recently, we have heard more and more messages about Ubuntu Snap packages and Flatpak (formerly called xdg-app) created by Red Hat employee Alexander Larsson.

These two next-generation packaging methods have essentially the same goals and features: Independent packaging of third-party system function libraries.
To answer these questions, let's take a deeper look at Snap AND Flatpak.

Motivation

According to the Flatpak and Snap statements, the main motivation behind this is to enable applications of the same version to run on multiple Linux distributions.

"From the very beginning, its primary goal was to allow the same application to run on various Linux distributions and operating systems ." -- Flatpak

"…… The 'snap 'generic Linux package format enables a simple binary package to run perfectly and securely on any Linux desktop, server, cloud, and device ." -- Snap

More specifically, people behind Snap and Flatpak (S & F) believe that the Linux platform is fragmented.

This problem causes developers to do a lot of unnecessary work to make their software run on different releases, which affects the progress of the entire platform.

As a leader in Linux distributions (Ubuntu and Red Hat), they hope to eliminate this obstacle and promote platform development. But is it because more personal gains have stimulated the development of S & F?

Personal income?

Although there is no official statement, just think about the packaging method that can be used by most releases (even not all) if it can be created, the leader in this project may be an important person who can decide the course of a Linux ship.

Advantages

This independent package has many benefits and depends on different factors.

These factors can basically be classified into two categories:

User perspective

+ From the perspective of Liunx users, Snap and Flatpak bring about the possibility of installing any software package (software or application) on any release version used by users.

For example, if you are using a release that is not very popular, the software warehouse of the release is only a rare package due to lack of development work. Now, with S & F, You can significantly increase the number of packages, which is a wonderful thing.

+ For users who use a popular release version, even if there are many packages in the software warehouse of the release version, you can also install a new package without changing its existing feature library.

For example, a Debian user wants to install a "test branch" package, however, he does not want to change his entire system to a beta version (to run the package on the updated feature library ). Now, he can simply install whatever version he wants, without having to consider the library issue.

For those who hold the latter's point of view, they may basically use source files to compile their packages. However, unless you use source code-based releases like Gentoo, otherwise, most users will regard it as a disgusting thing to compile from scratch.

+ Advanced users, or users with security awareness, may feel more likely to accept such packages as long as they come from reliable sources, which tend to provide another layer of isolation, because they are usually isolated from system packages.

* Both Snap and Flatpak are constantly striving to enhance their security. Generally, they are isolated using sandbox to prevent them from being infected with the entire system, like in Microsoft Windows. the same as the exe program. (We will talk about Microsoft and S & F later)

Developer perspective

Compared with common users, developers may be more aware of the advantages of developing S & F packages. This is already prompted in the previous section.

However, these advantages include:

+ S & F simplifies multi-release development through the process of unified development. For developers who need to run their applications on multiple releases, this greatly reduces their workload.

++ Therefore, developers can easily run their applications on more releases.

+ S & F allows developers to publish their packages without permission, and does not need to rely on the release maintainers to publish their packages in each/every release.

++ Through the above method, developers can directly obtain statistics on the installation and uninstallation of their software without relying on the release.

++ Uses the same method to allow developers to directly interact with users without intermediate media, such as the release version.

Advantages

-Expansion. That's simple. The dependency between Flatpak and Snap is not changed out of thin air. Instead, it uses the system dependency instead of pre-built dependencies.

As the saying goes: "If a mountain does not come, I will go to the mountain ".

-As mentioned earlier, users with high security awareness will like the additional isolation layer provided by S & F, as long as the application comes from a trusted source. However, from another perspective, users who do not know much about this aspect may obtain a package containing malware from a unreliable location, causing harm.

The above point of view can be said to be meaningful, although today's popular methods, such as PPA and overlay, may also come from untrusted sources.

However, S & F packages increase this risk because malicious software developers only need to develop one version to infect various releases. On the contrary, without S & F, developers of malware need to create different versions to adapt to different releases.

Taking into account the above, it is clear that in most cases, the advantages of using the S & F package exceed the disadvantages.

At least for users of the binary release, or users who are not focusing on the lightweight release, this is the case.

This prompted me to ask this question. May Microsoft always be correct? If yes, will you continue to use Linux or Unix-like systems after S & F becomes the standard of Linux?

Obviously, time is the best answer to this question.

However, I think that, even if it is not completely correct, Microsoft is also commendable in some places, and from my point of view, all these methods can be used immediately in Linux is indeed a bright spot.

From: http://mt.sohu.com/20160918/n468642039.shtml

Address: http://www.linuxprobe.com/snap-flatpak.html