this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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Ah, I hadn't realized Canonical was so awful as to disable the format everyone else agreed on, but seems you're right: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/02/ubuntu-flavors-no-flatpak
They didn't "disable the format"
From your own link:
Well, yeah, you can enable it. But if it's not active in their GUI software store by default, then many users will not find / look for it. It's rather important for a package format that you don't have to separately install it.
Why do you need to have two package formats that do the same thing installed by default? If you could install snaps and flatpaks both from the same store you could have 2 (or 3 if you also installed the .deb) copies of the same app, like steam etc installed, and user sessions and games set up on one wouldn't be launchable from the other because they all store their state and config in different locations - the only way to know what config your program is launching with would be to inspect and rename the launcher scripts. If you are intending to support naive users this is the absolute worst case scenario. It would be like debian including pacman by default as well alongside apt for maximum user ~~accessibility~~ confusion.
Because many apps will (or would prefer to) only be bundled as Flatpak. I agree that the deduplication is not a trivial problem to solve, even if they might have already solved it for DEBs (I don't know).
But your entire comment could just as well be a rant why Canonical shouldn't have introduced Snaps in the first place. It might be good for their bank account, if they can somehow monetize part of the cake, but splitting the cake even further, after it's already split into DEB, RPM, AppImage, Flatpak, Docker, APK etc., that's maximum user confusion.
This reads like speculation to me and is directly contrary to the file counts on flathub and snapcraft. What about CLI apps and server software? How are they supposed to distribute their software if not via snap? (Flatpak doesn't support this well)
You are acting like Ubuntu core (and snaps) came after flatpak? Snaps were announced almost a decade ago
Like, I get you don't like snaps, but your argument is basically "every Linux distribution should ship the same default software, and it should be the software I choose"
I don't know why you're trying to interpret all kinds of things into my comment. I did not say any of that. This isn't some competition to show who's technically more correct.
Ubuntu itself never natively came with Flatpak though. Some flavours might have, but their marketshare is also a lot smaller.
Of course, if Ubuntu ever decided to ship with Flatpak natively, that would instantly become the obvious choice.