I know the forums are the place for requests (only? i think?), and most times it seems like that works well but is there (or should there be) an actual place where “tickets” can be filed that are given an actual issue # that can be tracked.
For transparency it seems like that would be necessary. In addition the “community” could know that issues are in fact answered and dealt with in a timely manner.
I have seen some issues either go unanswered or take a while to be answered or need additional prodding to be answered.
I guess, is there a level of service that individual publishers of snaps can expect? Is it always just best effort?
Since there is only one store it seems like a higher degree of transparency and service would be required even if it is “free”. In the same way I suppose that the Google Play store is managed.
A developer account is indeed required to publish snaps to the store already so that part is handled. Perhaps it’s through that a more official “ticket” can be filed?
Then there’s this issue:
… about monetizing snaps that has never really had a proper answer.
What kind of ticket do you have in mind? I know that some bugs related to the store can be filed in: https://bugs.launchpad.net/snapstore-server but a general support place is the forum as far as I’m aware of.
Any sort of support request. The forums are fine, particularly during development but the minute someone is interacting with the store proper it seems like forums are a poor choice for that. Since only specific people have access and can say with certainty.
I’ll ask more generally then: is there a place, a single page of Terms of Service for the Snap Store? Is there a single place where the Service Level Agreement is specified for the community?
Since the store is decidedly not the community (even if members of the community service it as part of their day job and it’s part of the free Ubuntu offering).
It’s possible this exists and I have not come across it. Thanks!
I’m not aware of any. But then I don’t recall there ever being one for the main archive, the security archive or the partner archive. Not sure how the snap store is any different here?
I think there’s a miscommunication here rather than me being disingenuous. I assumed your question was related to the SLA for response time, uptime, availability.
The snap store is a webserver full of packages. Just like the archive(s) is/are a webserver full of packages.
When something goes wrong with the archive, we talk to people on irc or via mailing lists or discourse forums. For the snap store it’s not a lot different.
Then my apologies for assuming such. But I think the fact that there is a single point of failure for all things snap related is still salient.
There are no mirrors. There are no alternative repositories of snaps, etc. It is different. I think at the very least it requires more transparency and more effort to treat it like as such.
I can’t ever point my snapd at an alternative if Canonical ever experiences an outage. And it is Canonical that manages and runs the store which is a for-profit corporation, right? Not the Ubuntu Foundation or the like? (which may not be a difference just clarifying that it’s not as if I’m submitting my snaps to a non-profit store).
So again, I think it requires more transparency and communication of guarantees (or lack of) and that’s what I’m advocating for.
It’s possible there’s a difference of opinion about what’s actually required in that regard and that would be OK but
This is why I mentioned security and the partner archive. They also had no mirrors, and were/are a potential single point of failure. The IS team at Canonical manages those repositories, and I have seen precious few down-times on either of those services in the many years I’ve used Ubuntu. Ubuntu has survived for a very long time with both of those archives unmirrored with millions of users.
(Note, it’s technically possible to mirror both of them, but the vast majority of installs of Ubuntu use those repos direct from the Canonical hosting)
I understand the issue some people have with the snap store being the only store.
Again, this is no different to the partner archive. It used to contain Skype, Adobe Flash player, IBM Java and all manner of other 3rd party applications. These were packaged and published in partnerships between Canonical and other companies where money may have changed hands (but I don’t know, because that was above my pay grade) as a commercial arrangement.
Look, I’m not trying to dismiss all your arguments for a federated store. Just don’t try and use the argument that this is a brand new novel thing that never happened before, and Canonical are doing things differently. Because that could be argued is disingenuous, frankly. The fact is, there are large parts of Ubuntu which are financed by Canonical. Canonical is a for-profit company. This is not new, or newsworthy.
Thank you Canonical for building, hosting and serving all those files for me at no personal cost to me, and large cost to you.
That is certainly not the case or at least intent. The trust model and assertion based permissions of snaps is 100% new and different. Forwarding apt packages to snap packages is 100% different.
We know we disagree about the “single store” philosophy. Agree to disagree, that’s fine. No problems there.
But- what I’m saying as long as that is the case I think it deserves more transparency and more agreements than have previously existed.
So then your current argument is that it’s no different (or not different enough) and that everything that has existed is good enough to transition to this new way of doing things full sail?
Perhaps I’m also being paranoid but it seems like, to me, that the plan is to at some point to have transitioned to ALL snaps, right? Or else why bother?
So if I’m putting the cart before the horse and that’s not actually a plan, then OK. But it strongly feels like the pull is in that direction.
Also- if this is ever actually the case (or you feel in this case that it might have been) please continue to call me out on it. Because above all else, while spirited maybe, I want it to be an open, vigurous discussion based on good faith.
Because, above all else, I am a HUGE Ubuntu fan. I’ve been using Ubuntu exclusively since probably 5.04. So I advocate from a place of being epicly invested in Ubuntu being the best thing it can be at all times (just now finding my voice for that cause :)).
Fun fact: I contacted Canonical ages ago about adding a non-Paypal option so I could send them money when I downloaded the ISO. It never came to be
This is not a goal, we rely on debs for building snaps, and there is simply a goal to transition complex software like browsers and the like to snaps because it is less maintenance burden to maintain one snap that runs on 16.04, 18.04, 20.04, 21.04 and 21.10 and etc etc. than it is to maintain all of those different distros as debs. Alan’s blog post does a great job of explaining this, but I am also telling you as a snapd developer that the goal is not to fully replace debs, we think that debs and snaps can live alongside one another, with certain types of software being shipped as snaps because it makes sense and is convenient and certain types of software being shipped as debs also because it makes sense and is convenient.
Well, UbuntuCore might grow eventually into the server and desktop spaces for certain use-cases, but they will surely not be a replacement for the classic installations and as ian said, snaps (or rather snapcraft) heavily rely on an intact Ubuntu archive for building …
Right- but that’s an interesting phrasing: “for building”. So I could envision a future where there is a desktop, entirely made of snaps and those snaps are perhaps made up of some parts of Debian packages and some parts other stuff but the result is an all snap distribution.
Perhaps I am worrying about nothing but it just seems like economically at some point there will be less and less incentive to invest in anything except snaps (Ian’s point about the reasons for Chromium hold true for anything big or small).
If the value and reason for the Snap store and it being the only store are sound then it almost by definition leads to the elimination of apt repositories (if given a long enough horizon).
Y’know what, this conversation is a prime example of one of the reasons I left Canonical. A community that can only see the bad in things.
I have been saying what ogra and ian said, for years, because you know what, it’s true. There is no plan at all to replace debs with snaps. I’ve even had people make hit-piece youtube videos trying to suggest they “caught” me out because we migrated chromium to snap, and this is somehow proof that Canonical are evil and want to take debs out the back and shoot them in the head.
Yes, there’s a snap-only system designed for appliances, IoT, edge gateways. Yes, there’s a project that’s been of and on and off and on to make a snap-only desktop. It was called “ubuntu personal” for a while, but it and snapd wasn’t read for use. There’s been a ton of work done by developers to confine the desktop - much like Silverblue from Fedora and Microos from SUSE. And yes, some snaps such as lxd, chromium and snapcraft have been migrated from debs to snaps for very specific reasons.
But there is no plan to completely replace debs with snaps.
You’ve had two snapd core developers very clearly say there is no plan to replace debs with snaps. Yet you’re trying to find hidden meaning and get-outs so they can do it one day and say “ahh, but we never said we wouldn’t do it on Wednesday! Hahhahah got you! As we run to the bank”. Ludicrous.
Having to repeatedly say there is no plan to do something only to be told “yeah… but…” is draining. I wonder if Fedora or SUSE devs get this kind of pushback, or if it’s unique to Canonical / Ubuntu? Worth a thought.
I’ll let the Canonical people carry on this conversation, because I’m clearly burned out by it, having had it a hundred times over the last 5 years, and still disbelieved.
I think it’s OK for a person in the community to see something and disagree and not like it or think it’s the wrong direction without either that person or the entity doing the thing to be wrong or evil.
I don’t need to ascribe a value judgement to just want what I want. As I would not try to make someone else wrong for just wanting what they want.
Plans can, do and will change. Not necessarily for this but for other things. If we believe in the spirit of Ubuntu then not advocating for and protecting an escape hatch from the business entity that is bound by economics is foolish.
I’m literally just having a discussion and calling for more transparency around the store.
I don’t know. I’m not really in those communities as I’ve mentioned I use Ubuntu almost exclusively. Why would you want an earnest user, one who advocates LOUDLY for your OS and platform to not fiercely voice what it is they want for that OS and platform (I’m also trying to put my money where my mouth is, see Project Kebe).
I hope you believe me when I say, I do get that and I understand it and appreciate it.
You’re missing the point of Alan, Oliver, and Ian’s rebuttals. They’re pointing out that your beliefs are unfounded and, given that, are asking that you consider that your position might be different if you don’t hold those beliefs. Most of the points you’ve raised as reasoning for your position have been categorically refuted, yet you continue to argue as though they haven’t.
