[ceronman]

Flatpak seems to follow a similar path as many other Linux technologies like Wayland or Systemd, in the sense that they seem to arouse the anger of a small but very vocal crowd who really can't stand any challenge to the status quo. So this is the template of the story:

There is a new tool or workflow trying to replace or complement an old one. This new tool tries to solve many different complex problems that the old tool, usually designed decades ago, doesn't solve well in this the current world. To do so, obviously, some sort of compromise is required, the new tool won't do certain things that the old tool used to do, but in exchange of that it will do a lot of new things that many users really want. However this small crowd is really pissed by this, without understanding that there is no holly grail solution and some sort of compromise is always required. Additionally, as it's natural with any new technology, the very first incarnations of the new technology are not very mature and there is a lot to polish, a lot of tooling missing, and a chicken and egg problem of not enough users to drive its take off. And the small crowd will use all this as much as they can to try to prevent the world from moving on.

However, as time passes, the new tool starts becoming more mature, the obvious shortcomings get fixed, and all the new possibilities that the tool enables start to really shine. And while the initial compromise will always remain, the majority of users realize that the tradeoff was worth it.

This has happened with Systemd, it's starting to happen with Wayland, and I believe it will happen with Flatpak was well. We'll see.

[JohnFen]

> without understanding that there is no holly grail solution and some sort of compromise is always required.

Why do you assume that such people don't understand this? Sometimes those compromises mean that the tool can no longer accomplish something important to some users.

I don't think that being upset that software has become less useful is terribly unreasonable or hard to understand.

> Additionally, as it's natural with any new technology, the very first incarnations of the new technology are not very mature and there is a lot to polish, a lot of tooling missing

And while the software is in that state, it shouldn't be forced on anyone. It's not unreasonable for people to want to use software that actually works well in the present.

[depressedpanda]

In what way is Flatpak being forced on you?

[JohnFen]

I didn't claim that it was. I was speaking to the more general point that ceronman was making.

[c-hendricks]

Sounds a lot like appealing to emotion, since you're the one using the term forced.

[JohnFen]

OK, I see your point. That wasn't my intent.

I'll rephrase: while software is in that state, it shouldn't be released.

[mcpackieh]

> arouse the anger of a small but very vocal crowd who really can't stand any challenge to the status quo.

This sort of narrative is common cope from developers who make substandard software. Ego blinds them to their own limitations so they blame the users. Just look at the difference between Pulseaudio and Pipewire. Pulseaudio is widely hated and the developers said it's because people just hate new things. But Pipewire is newer and people love it, the supposed reflexive hate for new things doesn't manifest for Pipewire. So what's the difference? Pipewire does what it's meant to and doesn't cause problems for people. Pulseaudio caused endless grief, that's why people hated it. SystemD earned ire by causing people problems; had it not done that most users never would have realized they were using it in the first place.

[kaba0]

While Pipewire is certainly better than Pulseaudio, let’s not forget that the latter actually surfaced the millions of bugs in sound drivers by simply using them in a more advanced way than just putting out audio, so while it was buggy initially, most of those stem from a layer below.

[mcpackieh]

Pulseaudio is buggy to this day, and switching to Pipewire is most often the easiest way to fix problems with audio, particularly bluetooth audio. They're both meant to do the same thing, but using the same exact drivers Pipewire just works better. This is why all the major distros are switching to Pipewire; a transition which hasn't earned the ire of the users who are supposedly mad at anything new.

[kaba0]

Systemd and Wayland actually solve a real problem, and they do it well. (And I agree that they have a terribly loud and more often than not technically unfound criticism going on in each such thread)

In case of Flatpak we have a so so much better solution in the linux space (nix) that I feel that it is blindly going in the wrong direction. Package management is hard, but it finally has a solution. One might disagree with the implementation of Nix, but the idea is sound, and this is the first thing ever that doesn’t just push it a layer down, but actually solves the problem. The linux world should definitely ride this moment similarly to git’s success back then.

[c-hendricks]

Great argument calling out similar histories with then-new technologies, posted 4 minutes ago, already turning grey on HN.

Please change, HN.