this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
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Why? What's the issue with Snap? Is Flatpak any better?
Yeah, Flatpak is far better. The most glaring issue: Canonical hosts the only Snap backend, you can't host it yourself. Flatpak on the other hand is fully open.
Don't introduce proprietary crap just so companies can profit off of it.
I agree but I think it's the user who should be able to make the informed choice (ie. during installation)
No, optionally free is not enough.
This is a stupid argument. In FSF's eyes even having nonfree repository (ie. for drivers) is bad so this is completely irrelevant for anyone considering flatpak or snap. Both have nonfree stuff in there.
But flatpak's backend is open source and self-hostable, while snap's is proprietary and not self-hostable. Flatpak is the lesser of evils from this point of view.
I'm not arguing whether snap or flatpak is better. Flatpak is better.
But your arguments are going against each other. You disagree that FSF should tell you what software you can use but then you want to tell other users what software they can use. If you use flatpak despite of FSF's opinions, you should let people use snap despite of your opinion.
Honestly, why enable this kind of behavior in any way? Any user is free to make an informed choice by installing it themselves.
We all know how this goes. Once a critical mass is reached, enshittification begins to milk everything dry. By making it an installer option, you're legitimizing it and supporting a worse future for the Linux desktop.
Ok but KDE has official Snap packages so they already are "legitimizing it". Also snap won't be able to entshittify anything. Snapd is still open source, so you can just repackage the software for different package system.
My guy. There is no open backend for Snap. If Ubuntu enshittifies Snap, nobody can host an alternate backend for them. How does the client being open source help you?
You simply use a different packaging format as I said in the previous comment.
Okay, and how does snapd being open source help with that? It literally has no effect on it.
And when your best argument is "if it gets enshittified you can switch off of it", why help it get popular in the first place?
Well if it were closed source, it would be harder to repackage proprietary apps because you would not know how the snap "root filesystem" translates to $DISTRO root filesystem.
Because some apps are only packaged as snaps so if you want them to be accessible to users, you have to install snapd. Flatpak can still be the default which on non-Canonical distros already is. Which why I don't even worry about snap becoming the standard.
Only if all the other tools (like Snapcraft) were also made closed-source and obfuscated, but that's besides the point. What if, for example, Snaps start costing money, and you can't legally turn them into Flatpaks and distribute them? What if the only legal way to get some software for Linux will be the official Snap repository? This approach will make for a far worse user experience than simply using the already working, already open-source and non-enshittifiable alternative.
And by promoting Snap to the same status as Flatpaks on other distributions, you're opening the gates for enshittification and a worse user experience tomorrow. Again, why support it as an equal option if we all know the price?