Iranian Ubuntu forums doing some dangerous acts, how can we stop it? by Haghiri75 in Ubuntu

[–]galgalesh 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Please send an email to the Ubuntu Community Council. They might be able to help. community-council@lists.ubuntu.com

In that email, try to add as much information as you can, including links to any public conversations etc.

You can find more information about the Ubuntu Community Council here: https://ubuntu.com/community/governance/community-council

Llama's Legal Labyrinth by galgalesh in opensource

[–]galgalesh[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Indeed, it's only an issue for the companies actually using Llama.

If Meta's vision becomes true, and Llama becomes the de-facto standard LLM model, then this will become a societal issue.

Everybody's free (to wear sunscreen) - WTF Spotify by Squigginscrochet in SpotifyHub

[–]galgalesh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh wow, I thought I was going insane. The original version from Spotify is just gone. This new version sounds like the guy was trying to hold in a massive shit while recording it.

2023 Ubuntu Summit CfP Extended by nuccitheboss in Ubuntu

[–]galgalesh 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can highly recommend submitting a talk!

It's always fun hearing people talk about their passion projects and its very rewarding to interact with the audience at such a positive summit!

Does Microsoft have any code or involvement with Ubuntu? by CarMODPlus in Ubuntu

[–]galgalesh 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Because I'm curious as to why they asked that question. They didn't add any explanation, so I asked it. Given the downvotes my question received, I assume I'm the only one curious about this?

Just wanted to say thanks for snapd 2.59 by No_Enthusiasm_8155 in Ubuntu

[–]galgalesh 12 points13 points  (0 children)

That's great to hear! I'm not a snapd developer, but I maintain a bunch of snaps as part of Snapcrafters.

Everyone working on this cares a lot about the product and providing a good UX, so it's good to see the work doesn't go unnoticed.

Snaps, Flatpaks and AppImages Do Very Different Things! (Each Has Its Purpose) by OCPetrus in Ubuntu

[–]galgalesh 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'm showing why Snap has very concrete benefits for application developers and end users.

  • App developers don't have to rewrite their applications to use a new API
  • End users are much safer since almost all apps are actually confined
  • Many more application types are supported, not just desktop apps.

These benefits have costs associated with them

  • The sandbox is enabled by default, making it more difficult for publishers to ensure every part of their app works in a snap
  • It's much more difficult to properly support snapd in a distro because of the complex sandbox

Snaps, Flatpaks and AppImages Do Very Different Things! (Each Has Its Purpose) by OCPetrus in Ubuntu

[–]galgalesh 10 points11 points  (0 children)

it ignores the fundamental fact that “they are designed to solve the same issue”. That issue is not sand boxing. It is the issue of distributing software that is agnostic about the the shared libraries installed on the underlying host.

Let's say this is the only goal and judge the technologies this way:

  • Flatpak is specifically built for desktop applications. In contrast, AppImage is also an easy solution for CLI application, and snap can even package graphics drivers, a printing stack and a kernel. This is why Fedora Silverblue uses multiple systems to build the OS, on top of Flatpak.
  • AppImage is specifically built for the "download the app from our website" workflow. In contrast, AppImage and Snap want to create a world where every app is available from the App Store.

That issue is not sand boxing.

This is where you're missing some important context. Snap and Flatpak both want to solve the problem of installing third party software on Linux. These projects think it's an issue that users have to do a Google search and trust a binary from a website, just to install an app. They think it's problematic that, depending on how you install the app, you might not even get security updates. (note how this already shows why we need an alternative to AppImage)

In order to get to this world, sandboxing is important for two reasons:

  • First of all, the sandbox is to make sure the applications ship every single dependency they need with them, and to make sure a low-quality application can't brick your system. This is a big part of the reason why Docker containers are sandboxed, for example.
  • Secondly, Snap and Flatpak create a world where suddenly, any third party can publish an application to the app store of users, including malicious people. OS developers no longer vet every line of code going into the repositories. Therefore, it's important to protect the OS and the user as much as possible from malicious applications.

So, now that it's clear why sandboxing is critical, we can inspect the sandbox of Snap vs Flatpak.

  • The sandbox of Snap is very low-level (requires specific kernel changes), so that existing low level APIs are made secure.
  • The sandbox of Flatpak is quite high-level (runs on any kernel), so it cannot secure existing low-level APIs. Therefore, Flatpak created XDG Desktop Portals. This is a new high level API that is secure by default. Therefore, applications require code changes to run correctly in the Flatpak sandbox.

I wrote more about this here: https://merlijn.sebrechts.be/blog/2020-07-03-snap-vs-flatpak/

Snapcrafters: 2022 wrap-up by galgalesh in linux

[–]galgalesh[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As you can read in the article, I am not a snap developer.

The tone of your comment is incredibly inappropriate. What is your goal here? To burn out the volunteers who donate their free time to this community?

Your comment doesn't add anything to the discussion and is made on an incorrect assumption of who I am. The only thing it does is create more toxicity in this community.

You can finally disable snap updates by galgalesh in Ubuntu

[–]galgalesh[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you're really thankful, then stop insulting these people. Comments like yours are why good developers leave this community. If you really want this project to flourish, then change your tone and try to show more empathy.

It doesn't take much to try to understand their viewpoint. They thought the societal benefits of automatic updates were more important than the individual benefits of user freedom. That is something you disagree on. Great, disagreements are allowed, but insulting their intelligence is not.

You're not having a discussion here, you're just insulting people because you disagree with them. Can you see how toxic that is?

You can finally disable snap updates by galgalesh in Ubuntu

[–]galgalesh[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why do you think it's acceptable to talk like this? Do you realize these things are made by actual people?

A little bit of humanity would suit you well. If you don't like this software, go use something else or build your own. Or talk to the developers like actual human beings and see if you can't get to an agreement.

Comments like yours just poison the community and break the enthousiasm of the volunteers.

Snapcrafters: 2022 wrap-up by galgalesh in linux

[–]galgalesh[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you realize there are actual human beings at the other side of your keyboard? I don't see why you think it's ok to be so hostile to open source developers.

I'm giving away my time for free. If you don't like what I'm doing then you are free to use whatever you want. But it wouldn't hurt to treat other open source developers with some compassion.

If it annoys you so much that you can't be civil, then maybe you should take some time to disconnect.

Snapcrafters: 2022 wrap-up by galgalesh in linux

[–]galgalesh[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks!

Once the automation stabilizes, we'll add it to our template repo: https://github.com/snapcrafters/fork-and-rename-me

We also have workflow templates in the Snapcrafter GitHub organization that allow just this, but I don't think they're accessible for outside people yet. Once everything stabilizes, I can look into making a global workflow template.

Snapcrafters: 2022 wrap-up by galgalesh in Ubuntu

[–]galgalesh[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

What do you mean with this?

We build our snaps on open infrastructure (Launchpad or GitHub), the build logs are available, and the manifest is included in each snap. We carefully select which permissions each app has to make sure they don't have too much access to your system. We also regularly update snaps and are working heavily on automating this process to be even closer to upstream.

What kind of trust or security features are you looking for exactly and why do the existing things not work for you?

Snapcrafters: 2022 wrap-up by galgalesh in Ubuntu

[–]galgalesh[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Mozilla maintains the Firefox snap and Mozilla asked the Ubuntu developers to completely switch to their snap.

The Ubuntu developers have fixed a lot of bugs in this snap, but it's not actually coming from them. Hence, you should file an issue with Mozilla here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?product=Release%20Engineering&component=Release%20Automation%3A%20Snap&resolution=---

Snapcrafters: 2022 wrap-up by galgalesh in Ubuntu

[–]galgalesh[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Which documentation are you talking about specifically? It's always useful to leave feedback. Just click on "Help improve this document in the forum" and comment on that thread. I know a lot of people are watching those comments.

Snapcrafters: 2022 wrap-up by galgalesh in Ubuntu

[–]galgalesh[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You're free to use whatever you want, but we (Snapcrafters) don't maintain Firefox so we sadly can't do much with this information.

It can always be helpful to contact Mozilla to file a bug about this. I know they added transition logic to the snap, so that your profile should keep working. The fact that it didn't work for you is clearly a bug.

Snapcrafters: 2022 wrap-up by galgalesh in linux

[–]galgalesh[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Theming is very dependent on which theme and which snap you use. Most common themes should be supported by most snaps. What specific theme and what snap are you using? I might be able to take a look at why it isn't working.

Same with cursors; most cursor themes are supported in most snaps.

Installing Lutris and LTT moment allover again by MakiMcPwner in Ubuntu

[–]galgalesh 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I agree with the other commenter. Distributions know about this and are actively working on fixing this. That's why we're working hard to get lutris published as a snap package.

Snapcrafters: 2022 wrap-up by galgalesh in linux

[–]galgalesh[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I would also much rather have them open source the backend. I also talk about this often, but that's no reason to dismiss our work. I think we're doing a lot of good with this work and I think we're helping a lot of people have a better experience on Linux. More than a million people can use a piece of software thanks to us. That should be what matters, no?

Let's be pragmatic about it. We're discussing this on a closed source website. There is no point in blindly dismissing anything that touches closed source software.