You know what I just realised? These “universal formats” were created to make it easier for developers to package software for Linux, and there just so happens to be this thing called the Open Build Service by OpenSUSE, which allows you to package for Debian and Ubuntu (deb), Fedora and RHEL (rpm) and SUSE and OpenSUSE (also rpm). And then the dudes that do AUR packages can take a deb package and write a PKGBUILD that installs it on Arch and Artix. I think I just solved the universal packaging problem.
And maybe we can get OBS to add PKGBUILD support…
Also, feel free to let me know what you think about it as I’m genuinely curious: did I miss anything obvious? Thanks
The way I see it, the issue here is that everyone is trying to solve packaging from the developer perspective. I understand why they do, but the only way to solve this is to instead look at it from the user’s perspective.
Apps should be dead simple to find, dead simple to install, dead simple to maintain and use, and dead simple to remove.
This is why snap and flatpak and appimage are things. The problem here is that they each have various issues within them that break one or more of those tenets from the user’s perspective.
Trying to resolve packaging by going back to same methods that have existed for decades and wrapping them in a bow may help developers in some fashion, but the end users are still going to lament dealing with apps on Linux because it’s not solved — for them.
I like this perspective, but it’s the developers who get to choose in the world of FOSS software, and I suspect most would rather develop than package.
Learning the different formats, methods and then committing to re-packaging every update for eternity when you’re often a single person or a very small group is a big ask on top of developing the software too, so they’re going to select a method that’s easiest for them.
So if there was a user-led method, it would still need to appeal to developers as well.