On 06/15/2016 01:24 AM, Tomasz Torcz wrote:
> Well, if a packager wants to maintain it, why not?
> >
> >As someone who's a bit skeptical about containers as the future of software
> >distribution, I'd like to continue getting "traditionally
packaged"
> >applications from Fedora where possible. I became a Fedora packager as a
> >large part because I wanted to expand the pool of such software that was
> >available in Fedora, by making it available to other users. It seems like
> >that's not a thing we're going to care about as much going forward, which
I
> >guess is... fine, but I kind of have mixed feelings about the whole thing.
> >
> >I suspect I am in a minority here, though.
I hope you aren't, I share your sentiments exactly.
Count me among the
sceptics. As Florian pointed out, containers are
convenient, but opaque: they bypass the technical process that is the
basis for Fedora's excellence. As such, they are a form of technical
debt: fine to a degree, but not a primary way to run your household.
It would be nice if there was a 'container snapshot' facility that would
convert between a native application package from Fedora or Debian and a
portable container---possibly both ways. Obviously, native->container is
desirable for portability; the opposite conversion is less obviously
useful but might be a basis for a cross-platform packaging process in
the future.
In my mind, containers are primarily useful to run arbitrary untrusted
third party applications, but of course they need a good enough sandbox
system for that. I hope such system will emerge from the current work.