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Comment by duped | Hacker News Reader

The solution to this is to change the license to forbid redistribution, not to write an open letter.

I think something that is worth discussing is the model of the Linux distribution that leads to poor user experience like this, the distribution issues they are having would be worth discussing in a longer and more technical blog post. It's come up many times among criticisms of Linux ecosystems and distributing user software, but it doesn't seem like the message lands well.

It's remarkable how much easier it is to write software on Linux yet equally remarkable how much more annoying it is to reliably distribute it, compared to say MacOS .apps, the iOS/Android app stores, and to a lesser extent Windows. I don't think there has to be a tradeoff here between Freedom and UX.

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> The solution to this is to change the license to forbid redistribution, not to write an open letter.

That depends on goals and what they're willing to do to accomplish those goals; it's quite reasonable to not want to stop being open source over this and to try asking nicely.

> I think something that is worth discussing is the model of the Linux distribution that leads to poor user experience like this[...]. It's come up many times among criticisms of Linux ecosystems and distributing user software, but it doesn't seem like the message lands well.

Because it's not universally viewed as a bug. Plenty of folks explicitly want to download software from their distro's official repos, get something that's specifically tested (and if need be, patched) to play nice with the system, and stay on a known stable version. Because the flip side of this complaint is distro maintainers pointing out that if you downloaded random 3rd party software and added it to your system, they're no longer capable of assuring you that the result will work.

> It's remarkable how much easier it is to write software on Linux yet equally remarkable how much more annoying it is to reliably distribute it, compared to say MacOS .apps, the iOS/Android app stores, and to a lesser extent Windows. I don't think there has to be a tradeoff here between Freedom and UX.

Some folks would argue that it's harder because you shouldn't be doing it; https://drewdevault.com/2021/09/27/Let-distros-do-their-job.... . But if you want to go that way, there's always flatpak/docker/snaps to go around the distro and ship directly to end users.

I think this is a much more productive line of discussion than just asking not to distribute software.

For example, distros don't provide the guarantees you're talking about - they arbitrarily introduce fragility (for example, by requiring shared dependencies that may have conflicting versions) and don't keep up to date with the upstream software that has bug fixes. That's precisely why software authors prefer to release as flatpaks - regardless what distro teams claim, bugs and crashes manifest as problems in the distributed software (not the OS) and are reported to the upstream authors whose users demand fixes.

In short, distros can't provide assurances that software will work. They can't fix it if it's broken, either.

I disagree that it isn't the software authors' job to distribute their software and fix bugs for their users when using it. The only folks who seem to insist that this is The Way Software Should Be Installed are distro authors and a tiny minority of users who are ok with broken code shipped by their OS authors instead of working code by the original authors.

Imagine if an app crashes on Windows or MacOS, a user reports the app crashed, and the author replies: "Sorry it's Microsoft/Apple's fault for shipping broken software on their end, complain to them instead." Because that's the same quality of user experience when a distro ships older versions of software or try and link against invalid dependency versions.

> don't keep up to date with the upstream software that has bug fixes

It is a very rare occurrence that my distro's packages are more than a week out of date from upstream releases

> That's precisely why software authors prefer to release as flatpaks

This implies that "software authors" do "prefer" releasing flatpaks, a plainly false statement for the vast majority of software.

> distros can't provide assurances that software will work

based on interpretation, either plainly false or a misrepresentation. They can't guarantee that software will always work because they operate in the realm of reality, but their raison d'etre is to package software together so they interoperate.

> They can't fix it if it's broken

In fact, distros regularly patch software so they're not broken before (if ever) those patches are merged upstream

> a tiny minority of users

A "tiny minority" of users prefer using their system's package manager? Implying that the vast majority would prefer all their software be packaged and flatpaks and appimages and docker containers? I don't know where you're pulling these numbers from but I bet it smell crazy in there

The other option is trademark enforcement. That's the approach Mozilla took when they were unhappy with how Debian was distributing their software: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_software_rebranded_by_...

Remember Iceweasel?

That requires you to register a trademark though.

Not necessarily, unregistered trademarks exist in the United States at least.

And regardless, I'd expect expect someone asked to stop using a given name & logo to be more willing to cooperate than someone told to stop packaging it entirely.

> The solution to this is to change the license to forbid redistribution, not to write an open letter.

An open letter is a much softer approach. There's room for options between "legally permissible, end of story" and "completely prohibited".

Or just keep the permissive free license, but commit to only supporting Bottles installed via Flatpak and no other way.

Then put that support policy front-and-center on their website and in the LICENSE.txt file so that anyone seeking support knows that the Bottles team only supports Flatpak installs.

That will not stop users from trying to get your help, even by deceiving you about how they installed their software.

GNOME is in a position where any of their sponsored apps switching off of GPL could threaten their FSF endorsement. Creating a redistribution-hostile license forcing users to install Flatpaks instead of native packaging would definitely be an infraction of the FSF values, and it would certainly earn the ire of a non-insignificant number of users who have never touched Flatpak before or have no intentions of using it.

GNOME doesn't need FSF endorsement. I would even say that the FSF might benefit from GNOME's endorsement.

Whats wrong with asking nicely?

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