Ubuntu asks its derivatives to no longer include Flatpak

Chat about Zorin
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As far as Ubuntu is concerned, only deb and snap software is intrinsic to the ‘Ubuntu experience’, and that experience now needs to be offered everywhere. Flavor leads (apparently) agree, and have all agreed to mirror regular Ubuntu by not offering Flatpak features in their default install for future releases.
Do keep in mind that “not installed by default” is not the same as “not available to install at all”.
To this end, Flatpak continues to be available in the Ubuntu repos, and users of Ubuntu flavors are free to install Flatpak (and any related packages) on their system, manually, as is their wont, anytime they like.
Additionally, Flatpak will not be uninstalled or removed when user makes the upgrade to Ubuntu 23.04 from a version where Flatpak is already present.

This looks a lot like Pressure from Canonical to prefer Snap over Flatpak.

Note:

I misunderstood the meaning of Ubuntu Flavors and as such, reached some Misconceptions during the course of this thread. Please review this post for clarity:

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It is. Snap is also Canonical developed isn't it? This is getting to be more and more like a M$ situation... controlling applications and what you can do with the OS. The latest gnome is also pushing snap, not even offering deb packages (Firefox will have to be snap according to the software store) though other methods are available.

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How will this affect Zorin OS in the future? They can enable it to be default on their Distro.
But I'm glad I'm no longer uses (x,y,z)Ubuntu anymore. First firefox as snap ... and now this.

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I can't keep up with Firefox these days, so I use ESR version with APT.

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I'm really hoping that the ZorinGroup considers and implements a KDE Plasma version (since the same simplistic look can be achieved), but I don't know what kind of problems converting the system applications to QT or if they can modify the sys apps as easily. We'll find out soon enough.

Who knows... maybe budgie or mate DEs instead. There are a few options, though not as many as clean an interface.

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I don't care which DE a developer chooses, as long as the future Zorin OS can achieve a system as simple and sufficiently functional as 16.

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I think a really killer setup would be something like the Software application or Synaptic, but it allows you to download from your choice of snap, flatpak, .deb sources, .rpm sources... it's all fungible with a bit of bit-juggling, so download from whatever source and install it in the manner that has the best security / performance / most-easily managed / whatever your metric for 'success' is (and that metric could be and should be user-selectable), whether that be in .deb format, as a snap, as a flatpak, etc.

So let's say you can only find your desired program in flatpak format... your Software application or Synaptic downloads it, and since you've ticked the "best performance" box, it installs it as a .deb file.

Or AppImage:

I dunno, AppImage doesn't 'feel' right, but I can't quite put my finger on it... perhaps it's that the software doesn't undergo any review for inclusion in a repository? Or the fact that it has no in-built way of updating such as apt? Or the fact that it's a completely-contained application with all necessary libraries (even if 100 other AppImage files have the same libraries in their single-file bundle)? Maybe it's just a queasy feeling that a wholly-contained single-file application leaves one at the mercy of the developer having set everything up properly to begin with, with no chance of the end-user fixing what the developer messed up by not including the necessary files?

Anyway, we can use AppImages right now:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:appimagelauncher-team/stable
sudo apt update
sudo apt install appimagelauncher

One advantage... if you keep all your AppImages in a central location that's accessible from several different distros, they can all run the same AppImages.

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On Windows, I was a large proponent of appimages and stand-alone applications.

On Linux, I am not. Partly for the reasons you suggested.
Another reason is symlinks or shortcuts.

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Free people cannot speech because we have a dictator Canonical what speech from all us and don't care what we thinking.

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Perhaps they could have an AppImage of common code libraries, then other AppImages reference that and auto-delete their internal libraries if that common code library is present. That'd save a lot of space. If that common code library AppImage isn't there, the AppImages use their internal libraries.

If one had the common code libraries installed, and the other AppImage files have already auto-deleted their own libraries, then the common code libraries were deleted, any AppImage lacking those libraries could either prompt the user to download the proper code library, or they could download the necessary files and put it back into their own internal library.

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I've had to install flatpak on other distros before, so I don't see it as a major issue. There is also a multiple package listing problem in the software-center as a result having apt, snap, and flatpak installed. There are some security arguments as to why AppImage is not the greatest option. I don't care for snap or flatpak , but don't think my opinion matters much and both will be part of Linux packaging for the foreseeable future.

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It does. And part of the problem is the users discounting themselves in this fashion.
We are not leashed.

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It is no surprise that the guy behind systemd and pulseaudio took an active interest in flatpak as did his employers, Red Hat, who also want to be the M$ of the GNU/Linux world. Ubuntu for my money having seen Mark Shuttleworth in a video wants to be the Steve Jobs of the GNU/Linux world. Joe Bloggs just wants apt, Synaptic, Gdebi, and compile; make; install; run (when GNU/Linux was simpler once you knew how to compile, make, install, run!)

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I was thinking in terms of big name distros. Despite community complaints about snap in particular there are more and more packages developed with snap. Canonical developers rarely visit UF which is where the conversations take place. Flatpak has a firm footing in Red Hat/Fedora based distros as well.

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It started off as a Gnome Project then got adopted by RedHat/Fedora:

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For me it is apt or die. I was very disappointed that Inkscape no longer comes as a .deb package, only AppImage, snap and ubuntu ppa (notice tar.gz is now no longer present). That is why I am still using 0.98 on Devuan and not 1.2.2.

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You still have a option of compiling the source.

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Just couldn't see/find. 0.98 is good enough for me anyway.

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True GNU/Linux users demand the demise of snapd and flatpak ... but just like Gnome and xfce project teams, nobody listens! (Perhaps this should be in the Joke Thread!) :rofl:

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