| |||||||||||||
Mozilla's web app store debuts in Firefox for AndroidMozilla's web app store debuts in Firefox for AndroidPosted Oct 23, 2012 6:22 UTC (Tue) by epa (subscriber, #39769)In reply to: Mozilla's web app store debuts in Firefox for Android by debacle Parent article: Mozilla's web app store debuts in Firefox for Android
'Apps' are a subset of packages because they must be self-contained and installable without affecting anything else on the system. /bin/sh cannot be an app.
It would be cool to define 'app guidelines' for dpkg and rpm packages - the package must install to a few standard directories only, must not contain preinstall or postinstall scripts or suid binaries, etc - and then perhaps additionally run these packages in their own sandbox as Ubuntu is planning. Then while only root can install packages in general, ordinary users could install 'app packages'.
(Log in to post comments)
Mozilla's web app store debuts in Firefox for Android Posted Oct 23, 2012 8:48 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Good offer. Now you've reached (at least in your mind) the state of oh-so-hostile-and-non-free Apple's AppStore. To make something like Android's AppStore reality you need to develop good sandboxing (and accompanying set of permissions) first. It's true that repos and AppStores are two points in the same continuum, but [contrary to the common belief] repos are years behind in the direction which matters. This is the same story again and again: geek community solves 99% of the problem, and then stops. Years later commercial company solves the same problem 100% (and thus makes it available for Joe Averages) and geeks howl: "WTF, we had this for years". No, you didn't. Here is another example: think remote access. Unix (and Linux) had it from the start (because of network transparency). But… the most common scenario Joe Average may need is pretty simple: it's waaay too late, I'm still on the work, I want to go home and finish the work from there. Can I somehow reach these windows I have opened on my desktop right now? Windows got the answer in 2001 (with Windows XP) and it worked fine ever since. Linux... still does not have a satisfying answer. Some distributions offer VNC-based solutions (which are not as capable because anyone who's still in office can interfere), but venerable X with all it's "network transparency" claims is still not usable for that.
Mozilla's web app store debuts in Firefox for Android Posted Oct 23, 2012 9:55 UTC (Tue) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]
Agreed. Another thing that matters is binary compatibility. For years we in the free software world tried to convince ourselves that binary compatibility didn't matter (Mark Shuttleworth explicitly disclaimed the idea of 'compatibility at the level of binary blobs'), but it does. Otherwise, third party 'app' developers have no way to be sure their work won't be capriciously broken by some later update. Miguel went into this in his blog post which you may have already read: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2012/Aug-29.html
Mozilla's web app store debuts in Firefox for Android Posted Oct 26, 2012 13:01 UTC (Fri) by juliank (subscriber, #45896) [Link]
Right, but we can't really get rid of postinst scripts currently, as we need to do stuff like rebuilding icon caches. A solution would be declarative scripts which can be checked for correctness; or converting thus things to triggers (and equivalents on non-deb systems).
Mozilla's web app store debuts in Firefox for Android Posted Oct 26, 2012 15:31 UTC (Fri) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link]
Yes, for most packages having a full root shell in {pre,post}{rm,install} is not necessary anyway. Everything that is generated by dh (dh_icons, dh_installmenu, dh_installmime, ...) could be turned into triggers or similar.
|
|||||||||||||