[JohnFen]

> If I write a GTK app and want to make it available for Ubuntu/Debian users through official repositories, I need to make sure it gets added to the official package list, and every time I make a new release, someone else somewhere else has to do additional work just to repackage the application so it is available in the repository.

Yes, and that's a good thing for a whole bunch of reasons.

If you don't want to leave it up to the distro maintainers, nothing's stopping you from standing up your own repo to distribute your software to a particular distro. It's a one-liner for users to add your repo to their list so they can use their package manager to install and update your software as usual.

> Essentially, something like Flatpak is a middle-ground solution

Yes, I get that it's convenient for maintainers. But it kinda sucks for users (at least for me), which is why I avoid using software packaged that way.

I'll give flatpack this much credit, though -- it's not a nightmare like snaps are.

[wander_homer]

> Yes, I get that it's convenient for maintainers. But it kinda sucks for users (at least for me), which is why I avoid using software packaged that way.

My browser, mail client, rss reader, music player, video player, image viewer, steam, ... all have been working incredibly well as Flatpaks. I also get free sandboxing for all of them, so for example Steam and its games, don't have access to my ssh and gpg keys or documents.

The only applications which don't work that well with Flatpak are things like my IDE or file manager.