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Comment by rsyring | Hacker News Reader

> What else can they do...

They can do what Docker and many other software providers do that are committed to cross OS functionality. They could build packages for those OSes. Example:

https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/#install-using...

The install instructions you link to are relying on the OS providers to build/package Podman as part of their OS release process. But that is notoriously out-of-date.

You could argue, "Not Podman's Problem", and, in one sense, you'd be right. But, again, it leads to the question "Why wouldn't they make it their problem like so many other popular projects have?" and I believe I answered that previously.

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> build/package Podman as part of their OS release process. But that is notoriously out-of-date.

providing duplicate/additional non official builds for other OS is

- undermining the OSes package curation

- confusing for the user

- cost additional developer time, which for most OSS is fairly limited

- for non vendorable system dependencies this additional dev time cost can be way higher in all kinds of surprising ways

- obfuscate if a Linux distro is in-cable of properly maintaining their packages

- lead to a splitting of the target OS specific eco system of software using this as a dependency

etc.

it's a lose lose lose for pretty much everyone involved

so as long as you don't have a have a monetary reason that you must do it (like e.g. docker has) it's in my personal opinion a very dump thing to do

I apologize for being a bit blunt but in the end why not use a Linux distribution which works with modern software development cycles?

Blaming others for problems with the OS you decided to use when there are alternatives seems not very productive.

> cost additional developer time, which for most OSS is fairly limited

Mostly agree. But something like Podman w/ RedHat behind it is unlikely to be limited in the same way a lot of community OSS projects are.

Unfortunately, I disagree with just about every other point you made but don't think it's worth responding point-by-point. In short, I think a project having dedicated builds for popular OSes is a win-win for just about everyone, excepting that it does take, sometimes a considerable amount of, effort to support those cross OS builds. Additionally, there are now options like Snap/Flatpack/AppImage that can be targets instead of the OS itself, although there is admittedly a tradeoff there as well.

For some projects, say something like ripgrep, just using what is in the OS repo is fine because having the latest and greatest features/bug-fixes is unlikely to matter to most people using the tool.

But, on something like Podman, where there is so many pieces, it's a relatively new technology, and the interaction between Kernel, OS, and user space is so high, being stuck with a non-current OS provided release for a couple years is a non-starter.

> why not use a Linux distribution which works with modern software development cycles?

Because I like my OS to be stable, widely supported, and I also like some of my applications to be evergreen. I find Ubuntu is usually a really good mix that way and I'm going on 15+ years of use. There are other solutions for that that I could use, but I'm mostly happy where I am and don't want to spend the kind of time it would take to adopt a different OS and everything that would follow from that.

That leads _me_ to avoid Podman currently. I can appreciate that you have a different opinion, I just think you are a overplaying your perspective a bit in the comment above.

> like Snap/Flatpack/AppImage that can be targets instead of the OS itself [..] ripgrep

sure I agree that where it's easily doable (like e.g. ripgrep) having non distro specific builds is a must have

But sadly this doesn't fully work for podman AFIK as it involves a lot of subtle interactions with things which aren't consistently setup across Linux distros with probably the worst offender being the Linux security modules system (e.g. SELinux, AppArmor etc.). But thinking about probably sooner or later you probably could have a mostly OS independent postman setup (limited to newer OS versions). Or to be more specific 3 one with SELinux one with AppArmor and neither with neither, so I guess maybe not :/

>something like Podman w/ RedHat behind it is unlikely to be limited in the same way a lot of community OSS projects are

exactly. I've built podman for debian. It's not an esoteric target. It gets a little hairy with all of the capabilities stuff and selinux, but it's feasible. Give me, I don't know, $10k a quarter and I'd probably do it.

Trying to be genuinely helpful here:

After many years of "I want stability and evergreen", I finally realized that this is Fedora. Each release is very stable, and they arrive more often than once an eon.

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