Distributors entering Flatpakland [LWN.net]

Distributors entering Flatpakland

Posted Jul 9, 2022 13:03 UTC (Sat) by alonz (subscriber, #815)
In reply to: Distributors entering Flatpakland by bluca
Parent article: Distributors entering Flatpakland

I would much prefer a mechanism based on transparency, rather than blunt enforcement:

Each distribution will declare a set of "blessed" runtimes, containing the components it considers critical;
If a flatpak overrides any component from the "blessed" runtime, and the flatpak's version lags behind the "blessed" one - show a warning banner: "This package uses an old version of some libraries, and may introduce security vulnerabilities".

Sure, some users will just ignore these warnings. But some will not, and this could be an effective hammer to force packagers to behave more responsibly.

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