Listen, I don't even like Flatpaks, but at least they're multi-platform and non-proprietary.
But the original poster is probably of the opinion that "pro-consumer" means something that "just works", and if it's a walled garden, so what?
"Why is there barbed wire at the top of that wall?" "Don't worry about it."
That's stupid. Nothing stops you from just installing regular Ubuntu if you love snaps so much.
corporate linux apologists promoting proprietary ecosystems are still corporate apologists promoting proprietary ecosystems
I think a lot of the flak directed towards snap would be mitigated if they made the backend open source. I know there are some efforts to produce alternative backends (although the one I knew about lol / lol-server seems to have gone dark).
Another issue is Canonical's rather strong armed and forceful approach to making people use snaps rather than the OSs native packaging system, again, not something that should be an issue in theory but when people already have a negative view of the format to start with...
Personally I don't really have an issue with Snaps. I've had more luck with them and fewer issues than Flatpaks (which I also tend to avoid like the plague) but that is probably just because I prefer to use appimages or native packages rather than having to fight the sandbox permissions and weird things it can do to apps that don't take Snaps and Flatpaks properly into account.
That's an interesting comment from a guy that used to work for Canonical, and then went anti-snap pretty hard, to the point that he made this:
Anti-Snap is pro-consumer. Using Ubuntu at all is anti-consumer, I would rather Mint or just Debian.
I don't think he knows what "anti-consumer" means
Not wanting to elect dictators is anti-democracy!
Basically the same logic
That's one of the dumbest things I ever heard
There already is Flatpak. Many proprietary apps are shipped as Snaps, which helps with Flatpak packaging as the binaries can just be packed into a different container.
Snap developers kinda help with making the whole portals, isolated apps stuff work.
But thats about it.
I think it's a short term vs long term debate. In the short term snaps are nice. They might help you get that software you want right now. In the long term though, it will only take away some of your rights and make you into a product.
There are also some interesting things to say about wording. Specifically consumer vs user. Software is not consumed, it's used and depending on the specific software, the user might be abused by the people producing and controlling the software.
I think that phrases like 'anti-consumer' can stick to any target, so long as they're thrown with a sufficient amount of bullshit.
Can you link the original quote? I feel like there is a lot of context missing here.
Judge Tuxedo's reasonings here: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Infos/Help-Support/Frequently-asked-questions/Why-does-TUXEDO-OS-not-support-Snap-.tuxedo
Guy called me a nerd just for pointing out Tuxedo even explains on their website how to install snap.
It made a lot of sense after seeing he used to work at Canonical, lol.
Wow, I didn't know Canonical apologist is a thing.
Snap annoys the piss outta me because of the forced updates. That said, never ever had a snap package not work for me. Whereas installing some things from apt just doesn't work for whatever reason.
The difference comes when they actively *block* installation (just like Mint does).
Dude's anti-Mint as well. From a different comment, seems like he works (or worked) for Ubuntu.
You know what seems more anti-consumer to me? Trash-talking your competition for making different choices to you with your FOSS they're legally allowed to re-distribute with any changes they like.
It's almost like if people don't prefer those changes or something then they won't be popular? Oh wait, Mint is hugely popular...
Are you refering to this comment?
https://mastodon.social/@popey/112591863166141029
@bytebro Yeah, their butchered Ubuntu install, and anti-snap stance is anti-consumer.
My guess at the stance is I'd imagine it's that switching away from snaps is switching away from Ubuntu's support and security monitoring and updates to some less known/reliable/diligent third party?
Popey (Alan Pope) used to work for Canonical / Ubuntu, so he's presumably not inclined to jump on the bandwagon of Canonical/Ubuntu/snap hate since he knows a lot of Canonical and Ubuntu people and their motivations and work. Not that there aren't good reasons to criticize snap or other Canonical decisions, but it's also plain that a lot of people just join a hate bandwagon and don't even know what about it they object to. There is masses of wrong-headed criticism of Canonical out there e.g. I've frequently seen people criticize creating Upstart, saying Canonical should have used systemd, or bzr vs git! Presumably these people were annoyed at Canonical for not inventing a time machine.
You don't have to install Ubuntu on those laptops. I don't really understand his point. He wants snaps?
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