<div dir="ltr">On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 10:48 PM, Chris Irwin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:chris@chrisirwin.ca" target="_blank">chris@chrisirwin.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">
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Getting apps on android: google-play, fdroid, whatever. All use the
same apk packages, and those packages work on any android phone or
tablet, whether it's a samsung note running touchwizified android
2.3 or a nexus 10 running stock 4.4. When there's an update, you
don't have to wait for the next version of Android, or for a
community packager. You get updates straight from the developer,
through whatever channel you used to install it.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>But the comparison with Google/Android is not correct, unless Lennart wants his approach to evolve into RedHat controlling the store (like others have pointed out).<br>
<br></div><div>For Android, there is one company that controls the API. It is not community driven.<br><br>Also, the vast majority of Android apps are written for a virtual machine (Java/Dalvik). The developer, be they a one man part time thing, or a large corporation, compile the app and upload the file and that is it. <br>
<br>There is no dealing with various CPU architectures, and there are no libraries to deal with. Nor there is configure scripts, complex makefiles, install scripts, ...etc.<br></div><div><br>For any Linux, there is x86 (64 and 32), ARM, MIPS, ...etc target to compile for, and there are dependencies/libraries to deal with. The person who creates the app relies on providing packaging templates to the distro and the build servers take care of the multi-arch and dependency stuff. <br>
<br>A central repository of freely available software works for Linux, such as Debian/Ubuntu and even for custom niche distros like OpenWRT. No dependency issues, and multi-arch support.<br><br></div><div>Even with Ubuntu, they provide a "partner" repository, where commercial software can live, with vendors uploading their packages. So, there is a way of directly <br>
<br>I have that in /etc/apt/sources.list as<br><br>deb <a href="http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu">http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu</a> trusty partner<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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When you install an app, you're getting the *current* version, *from
the developers*. It tells you what permissions it needs. It's
restricted to those permissions. There is functionality to
individually allow/deny access levels, but for some reason isn't
exposed on android. You can try out new apps from new developers on
the day they're shipped if so desired. Their package can't
accidentally have an `rm -rf / tmp/myfiles` in a post-install
script.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yeah, that is a benefit that Android has going for it. Because they decided to create their own Dalvik format running on a bare kernel with a proprietary UI (much like Mac OS/X is a kernel + proprietary UI + proprietary package format).<br>
<br></div><div>They created a platform and they control it. This is not the way it is in the open/free universe though, for good or ill.<br></div><div><br>If we left it for individual developers to provide final installable
archives on Linux, it will be against whatever versions of libraries they happen to have on
their machines at the time, and all hell will break loose. That is why we have build servers, whether for free software projects, or corporations who create software.<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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But having distro-agnostic bundles sounds great to me for some
software,<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Would be nice to have distro-neutral packaging. Would be nice to install the Mac OS/X way by merely copying stuff to a directory too.<br><br>But we are not there yet, and what is being proposed is the wrong solution, using the wrong technology (file system).<br>
<br></div></div>-- <br>Khalid M. Baheyeldin<br><a href="http://2bits.com" target="_blank">2bits.com</a>, Inc.<br>Fast Reliable Drupal<br>Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.<br>Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. -- Edsger W.Dijkstra<br>
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