Re: About application distribution in GNU/Linux

[John Darrington]

My opinion concurs with that of Alan:  In common with most GNU programs, the 
"official" releases are the 
tarballs on ftp.gnu.org  

This is partly for pragmatic reasons and partly a matter of GNU policy.  See 
https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#Managing-Releases

If however somebody wishes to make and maintain "flatpak" package we will 
gladly link to it from 
http://gnu.org/s/pspp/get.html

BTW, If you are looking for a container like system which provides sandboxing, 
isolation and high
security, and the possibility of multiple versions concurrently, 
then I think you can't do much better than Guix.  PSPP is already "packaged"  
as a Guix application,
and can either be installed as a package manager over an existing operating 
system, or as a
complete operating system in its own right.  http://gnu.org/s/guix


J'


On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 02:14:21AM +0000, Charles Johnson wrote:
     >The place to discuss this with developers is pspp-dev.
     
     Thank you Alan... I know, however, this discussion is for PSPP and 
GNU/Linux users that usually installed PSPP and visualize the problems they 
have had in time. 
     
     >The PSPP devs can speak for themselves, but I think that they would/will 
say that packaging PSPP is now what >they do.? So, if you or someone else 
wanted to package PSPP using flagpak, I think they would welcome that >and 
support it by answering questions.?  But the only official release PSPP makes 
is to drop a source tarball onto >the GNU FTP server.
     
     Of course, that's the best present system and results in additional work 
they have to perform some volunteers to keep these packages in some 
distributions. The idea is that if a new packaging system takes into account 
this problem would be partially solved. I do not pretend a sudden change, but 
it can be a very effective alternative to distribute PSPP in GNU/Linux.
     
     >Regarding flatpak, I'm not familiar with it, but it looks like a 
container system. Is that right?? What specific >problem would flatpak solve 
that is plaguing PSPP?
     
     Flatpack looks like a container, but it is not. See: 
http://flatpak.org/faq.html#Is_Flatpak_a_container_technology_
     As the authors say, Flatpack is more related to sandboxed applications. 
     
     In addition to the consequences of having an isolated application of the 
system, this would reduce the minimum installation requirements (dependencies 
in general) would be distributed as a whole, ensuring greater control. This 
would allow new and stable use more libraries that would solve problems (eg. 
GTK + to use a new widget), upgrades that would benefit all users to be more 
direct, easy installation by the user, etc. Of course, not everything is 
positive, since for example increase the weight of the installation package 
among other things, but brings more benefits.
     
     CJT
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