We’re glad to announce a new collaboration between Microsoft and Google for the benefit of the web developer community. Microsoft’s PWABuilder and Google’s Bubblewrap are now working together to help developers publish PWAs in the Google Play Store.
PWABuilder.com is Microsoft’s open source developer tool that helps you build high quality PWAs and publish them in app stores.
Bubblewrap is Google’s command line utility and library to generate and sign Google Play Store packages from Progressive Web Apps.
I hope this further improves PWAs, since they are a godsend for smaller operating systems and even bigger ones that are not macOS or Windows. Sure, nothing beats a proper native application, but if the choice is no application or a reasonably integrated PWA – I’ll take the PWA.
OK therefore when Google and Microsoft do it, it is considered a godsend, although Google Play Store is closed source and Microsoft is predominantly a closed source company. If Google and Canonical do it, then lets burn it with fire:
https://www.osnews.com/story/132050/canonical-and-google-enable-linux-desktop-app-support-with-flutter-through-snap/
P.S. For GNU/Linux users the Google and Canonical option offers much more value and it is much more useful, compared to the mentioned Google and Microsoft offering.
It’s not even that Google and Canonical created an option, it’s that Canonical is forcing one to use snaps. Even if the tech was good (which is debatable at this stage) in general, Linux users don’t like things force fed to them, and Ubuntu is very much doing that. This is why Mint has purged snaps, and pop_OS also doesn’t include it by default.
leech,
Alas, it’s not the first and won’t be the last time things are forced onto us by the major distros.
While mint’s handling of user preferences is commendable, I’m not sure how sustainable it will be to avoid snap if ubuntu continues to push it through upstream. Right now it’s only a few packages, but as that grows I suspect maintaining their own packages could exceed mint’s limited resources.
Probably pretty sustainable. Canonical backed tech has a very poor track record for becoming dominant.
Flatpak looks to be the better technology for desktops. It has a vibrant community, and it addresses the problems Snap address in a much better way.
On the server side, things like nix (NixOS) and ostree (RH) seem to be the way things are going. Both are similar to how Flatpak works.
Snap was built for IoT devices, and I guess it makes sense in that regard. Everything is going to be read-only in that space for the most part.
Flatland_Spider,
You could be right, but it’s just that the application packages in Mint actually come strait from Ubuntu. Even if flatpaks are better, it doesn’t necessarily mean Linux Mint has the resources to maintain the applications itself. If it’s just the odd-ball package, then no big deal, but assuming Ubuntu converts more packages into snap, then I imagine Linux Mint will face increasing pressure to do the same. I don’t know what their plans are to deal with this, hypothetically maybe take the packages from LMDE? I don’t know.
Alfman,
Flatpak has been ported to Ubuntu and Mint. (https://flatpak.org/setup/) It’s meant to be vendor agnostic, so distros don’t have to maintain their own version like they do now, which would lessen the burden of maintaining a distro. A person or project packages their application as a pak(?), and any distro which Flatpak has been ported to gets access to the application.
Distros can setup their own Flatpak repo, which Fedora has done, but it’s not required. People can have multiple Flatpak repos setup and choose which one to use.
Flatpak is inspired more by AppImage then anything else, and it being a Snap competitor is more of a coincidence then any sort of design or plan.
I’m not sure what their plans are either. I stay away from Debian distros.
My suggestion would be to merge with the Fedora Cinnamon Spin (https://spins.fedoraproject.org/en/cinnamon/) 😀
Flatland_Spider,
I understand that. It’s one thing for alternatives to exist, but ultimately whether those alternatives become viable or not will depend on someone putting in the ongoing work to create and maintain those packages. I find that Debian and Ubuntu have the most comprehensive repos of linux software. To me it’s an open question whether ubuntu will continue migrating more packages to snap and if so if anyone will bother supporting alternatives. It’s certainly possible, but I wouldn’t say it’s a given. In my mind at least there is a lot of uncertainty.
Yeah, some people go that route. I’ve grown up on the debian side and for better or worse it’s what I prefer now, haha.
I use Ubuntu and i am not forced to use snaps. What i do see, when it comes to snap packages, is a lot of hypocrisy.
Geck,
Actually you may not realize it, but with the packages that have been converted you are using snap even if you installed an application through the traditional package system. Obviously you can elect to uninstall applications once they’ve been converted to snap, but assuming you want to install those applications ubuntu really has removed the option to install a traditional package – it is not hypocrisy or hyperbole.
Maybe you feel the cons of snap are exaggerated, fair enough. Or maybe you feel to scope is exaggerated given the limited deployment thus far. These could both be valid arguments. However it isn’t clear to me from your post whether you understand that ubuntu has totally replaced some packages with snap versions while not giving users an option to opt out. I don’t really know if ubuntu is going to continue packaging more software as snap, but this is where the controversy comes from, it’s certainly not “hypocrisy”.
For sure it is hypocrisy. As for me knowing if i use snap package or not, rest assure i know. As for less technical people in my opinion most of them likely do want to use a solution like a snap package, as that enables them to get latest version of software, they use, without the need to upgrade the whole operating system.
Geck,
What “hypocrisy” are you talking about? What exactly made you respond this way to leech? I really don’t follow.
Be that as it may, knowing whether a package uses snap or not is not the same as suggesting users aren’t forced to give up the normal package management for snap packages. I don’t comprehend quite what you meant to say…users aren’t forced to use snap because they can uninstall the ubuntu packages that depend on snap? Sure that’s technically true, but is that what you meant? If that is what you meant, I don’t think it’s a satisfactory response to those who don’t want snap to replace normal packages.
Maybe, or maybe not. It’s possible the dependencies in snap packages could actually end up being more stale than the repo’s.
It’s like I said, there are pros and cons. Snap clearly makes less efficient use of resources. Maybe it’s not a problem with lots of ram, but if you’re using an old computer, a VM, or raspberry pie, etc, then maybe it’d be more significant to you. I don’t have a problem with your opinions, but they don’t make leech wrong.
You’re already using snaps if you’re using Ubuntu.
I personally customize my Ubuntu install and i have good control over installed software and the sources it comes from. As far as snap packages are concerned i have installed Anbox. Now what is the problem with that? Why should i consider it a bad thing? There is little chance i would be able to install Anbox from the official repository anytime soon. And if there would be such option, as soon as i would install it, it would already be the old version, newer version only available by adding a PPA or another source, if provided, or by upgrading the whole operating system. But i am a technical user, what about the rest. Why should they perceive Inkscape installed as a snap package as a bad thing? As most people do want to have access to the latest version of installed software, without the need to upgrade the operating system.
MS bought Github and released VS Code. They’re the good guys now. They get it. Did you get the memo?
Anyway, Apple and Google are out; MS and Facebook are in. Walmart is also the place to buy clothes and electronics.
It’s hip to be square!
/s
When incentives align bad companies can do good things and when not good companies sometimes do bad things.
Just like people they aren’t perfectly evil/bad or good.
Lennie,
I agree. I don’t trust microsoft, but it doesn’t automatically mean everything they do is evil. What they do both good and bad is driven by financial incentives. Ripping people off can be profitable, especially for monopolies, but if one does it too much when the competition is too strong, then the backlash can cost more than the rewards. IMHO this is exactly why microsoft is embracing FOSS & linux these days compared to hating on them several years ago. Microsoft hasn’t had a change of heart, but the power dynamics have changed and there are greater financial rewards for playing nice with the FOSS community. I wouldn’t trust MS not to fall back to it’s embrace, extend, extinguish strategy if MS saw a winning move to take back control, however MS isn’t going to turn evil absent a plan to profit from it.
So the question we have to ask ourselves is whether cooperation or strategic attack is the most profitable path forward for MS? I don’t know the answer, but somewhat conveniently for microsoft both paths can start with the same “embrace & extend” steps without a commitment.
This is why I still have a hard time trusting Microsoft.
The same applies to all corporations.
Take Google: Google works hard on W3C and IETF standards and open source code. In part to give users more privacy on the wire. And on employing people to find security bugs, etc. Which is good.
Does that mean Google isn’t a big privacy issue ? Obviously not.
Maybe I’m just PO’d that you didn’t define your TLA. I care enough to log in and ask WTF is a PWA? But not enough to RTFA. Will someone please GTFM?
+1 Define the acronym at first use. 🙂
Ex: Progressive web apps (PWAs) are symptoms of a disease.
Ugh. They should come with a disclaimer. “These lazy clever bastards thought you wouldn’t notice they just packaged an extra copy of the ENTIRE chromium browser with their webpage, and called it a “desktop” application. Are you sure you want to install? “
Actually, no. You’re thinking of Electron apps. PWAs use the native web view of the platform and thus have no need to bundle the browser.
“2020-07-12 7:02 am
Moochman
Actually, no. You’re thinking of Electron apps. PWAs use the native web view of the platform and thus have no need to bundle the browser.”
And this is actually considered high quality?
“And this is actually considered high quality?”
As good as the browser (engine) you used to install it and nothing else to install.
Basically this is: ‘install option for web applications’ so put the web application on the home screen or in the start menu/whatever.
Then run it in a separate window of the browser you installed it from, without some borders, etc.
But also with support for offline use, etc. that exists in the modern web platform.
So you can still use it without the Internet, but when connected to the Internet it will also update from the original website it came from.
It’s not running as a separate instance of the browser engine, so their is no overhead of download or running an Electron app.
Hey, without the bundled browser its much less bad. I’d say that knocks a progressive web app down from “contagious skin rash” down to “face pimple”.
It can also safely be used to circumvent the appstore model.
I think that is also very useful.
First and foremost, there is no such thing as a high quality PWA.
Second and lastly, there will never be any such thing as a high quality PWA.
lol it has a hard dependency on Python 2. Good job, Microshart.
https://github.com/pwa-builder/pwa-starter
Don’t you mean node.js ? (I didn’t download/install it, but at first glance it uses node.js, not Python)