Re: [Libreoffice-qa] minutes of ESC call ...

Hi Jay, *,

On Fri, Jun 9, 2017 at 1:10 AM, Jay Philips <philipz85@hotmail.com> wrote:
> […]
> >      + unclear what the future holds here: Snap, FlatPack, AppImage (Michael)
>
> If its Libreoffice future, i believe AppImage will be it, as it provides similar functionality as 
> the portable version found on windows, like
>
> 1) not having to install it on your system to run it (aka portable)

No need to install for TDF builds either.

> 2) copying it on a usb and run it on any linux distro (atleast the minimum system that LO 
> supports, something that snap and flatpak cant do)

can do that with the TDF builds as well.

> 3) easily running multiple versions (would improve linux QA, as it would also lower that barrier 
> for users to test old versions)

can do that with the TDF builds as well.

> >      + no real need for Linux portable edition (Cloph)
> >         + tar-ball can be unzipped.
>
> This is fine for advanced linux users but not for basic linux users, including those from windows 
> or mac. The tar-ball doesnt even come with a simple extract or install bash script,

Not true, there's and install script that could be used, but even t
hat is not necessary since you can simply extract the packages
themselves.

for i in *rpm; do rpm2cpio $i | cpio -idmv ; done

with appimage you'd also have to use the console/terminal/whatever to
make it executable for example, so whether you have instructions that
read "run chmod +x <file-you-donwloaded>" or tell them to run any
other command/one-liner for that matter doesn't really make a
difference im my book.

> >      + some people may want it do why not ? (Heiko)
> >         + up-loading takes time, maintenance etc. (Cloph)
>
> The .tar.gz to .appimage bash conversion script can be run directly on the webserver, so that 
> would eliminate any uploading time.

But it seems that every language needs its own full installset, and t
hat is a no-go for actual redistribution.

> >         + if 2 people use it – build it themselves pwrt. daily builds.
>
> Quite sure more than 2 people will use it, as i would be one of them,

Exaggeration to make a point.

And flatpak has a different approach/has repository style backing, but
even that is not a general purpose distribution at the moment.
And for TDF builds flatpak also has deminshing returns, since the main
benefit of the dependencies are already taken care of..

> >      + the request is “become a linux distribution” (Michael)
> >        + flat-pack doesn’t include the GNOME run-time (Stephan)
> >        + AppImage sounds like it will include ~everything:
> >          Gstreamer + all codecs etc. - from some random PC (Michael)
>
> No the appimage will only include the same files LO bundles in the released .deb and .rpm files 
> found in the .tar.gz. It assumes the users system has the necessary other dependencies on their 
> system.

Then no added benefit.

> […]
> >           + AppImage works hard to solve a problem we already solved:
> >             of being an ISV on Linux – it is hard but solveable.
>
> Appimage tries to solve a major problem on linux, easily running an app on any linux distro,

Again: Already solved by TDF builds by using a baseline that  doesn't
introduce runtime issues.
The major problem doesn't exist for LibreOffice. For other software
that is a selling point, but LO already has solved this problem in a
different way.

Just  answer: Why should I convert to an appimage, if I could also
could just  create a tarball or iso-image or similar of the extracted
rpm packages? Same effect for LO.
Add a link to toplevel so people don't need to browse to
opt/libreoffice/program to launch, but then it's the same thing,
right?

ciao
Christian