"MM" == Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org writes:
MM> So, the crazy idea: what if, for applications which would be useful MM> as a Flatpak, we allow /opt/fedora/apps/[appname-version] as an MM> allowed prefix? Then, the exact same RPMs could be used by someone MM> who doesn't care about Flatpaks _and_ to construct the Flatpak, with MM> no really-invasive changes. (Perhaps by making a link inside the MM> Flatpak, or simply by asking for an extension to Flatpak to support MM> the different application root.)
I'm not entirely sure I understand all of what's being proposed here.
Certainly /opt/fedora/flatpack or something (but not "apps", which is too generic for a flatpack-specific location) would be a great place to place flatpaks; certainly better than /flatpack or whatever which was proposed previously.
But.. if you're suggesting that the regularly-packaged libeoffice be moved out of /usr and into /opt/fedora/apps/libreoffice (or libreoffice-5.1.6.1 or libreoffice-5.1.6.1-2 or some other variation incorporating more of the version-release pair) then... that's a big deal.
Some will say that it really goes against the whole Unix spirit and the organizational setup which we've had for 30+ years. I would agree that it's a break with history, but hipster-coders raised on /Libraries and /Applications certainly won't care, and if it carries measurable benefits (beyond just making something internal to flatpaks easier) then I think there's certainly an argument to be made for it. (The possibility of having multiple versions is, for me, enticing.)
Really my concern is how you'd deal with the more basic issues:
* How does typing "libreoffice" work? Do you also drop symlinks into /usr/bin? * How do things like desktop configuration, icons and whatnot get installed where desktops will look for them? * Can these "apps" provide libraries or content used by other "apps" or even just regular programs on the system? How do those other things actually find the content? * Do you allow multiple versions? How does that change the above three answers? How does ordering work in that case? How do you decide which version is the "main" one, which gets /usr/bin/libreoffice, etc.?
I really hope that the answer for the first three is to just add each of these directories to various search paths. That gets hilarious pretty quickly.
- J<