The proposal promotes diversity and sustainability in the Linux desktop community
Recently the news broke that GNOME and KDE, the powerhouses of the Linux desktop have taken the initiative to create an ecosystem of applications that transcends the different distributions and creates an open market for everyone.
The idea is basically to replace traditional methods Linux desktop application delivery systems, such as the DEB and RPM package management systems, with an approach based on the Flatpak package system.
The reason for this is simple. and is that the applications Flatpak runs on all Linux distributions. The approach should help reduce the fragmentation of the ecosystem pointed to as one of the reasons for the failure of Linux against Windows on the desktop.
The GNOME Foundation and KDE eV have been jointly building and growing Flathub as a vendor-agnostic service for Linux application developers to build and publish their applications directly to their end users. A healthy application ecosystem is essential to the success of the desktop OSS, so that end users can trust and control their data and development platforms on the device in front of them.
In order to incentivize participation in the Linux app ecosystem and remove financial barriers to diverse participation, GNOME sponsored work over the past year to add donations and payments to Flathub through Stripe, as well as a process for verify developer identities and allow direct access. uploads to facilitate the publishing process. This year we plan to launch this work in conjunction with the appropriate legal and governance setup, and are seeking additional funding to add: recurring subscriptions/donations, review tools to prevent abusive app submissions, and automated security/vulnerability scanning. Over time, we hope that Flathub can become self-sustaining through transaction fees and corporate sponsorship.
As well hardware compatibility issues likely explain linux vs windows crash on desktop. In any case, this is what emerges from a statistic published in mid-2021: 13,1% of new Linux users encounter hardware compatibility issues due to outdated kernels in distributions.
In a strict sense, Linux is its kernel, that is, the part of the OS that manages the computer's resources and serves as a communication bridge between the different components (hardware and software); it is the invisible part of the operating system.
In a broad sense, To speak of Linux is to refer to any operating system that is supported by said kernel; andThis is one of the aspects that makes this OS special, since the user can choose between 319 variations or distributions if we stick to the list of LiveCDs, this is a problem that Linus torvalds himself admits that this is the reason why that the operating system is struggling to establish itself in the desktop sector.
Currently, Several proposals have emerged in the Linux ecosystem to unify package delivery, of which the most popular so far and that already have a few years, are Flatpak, Snap and AppImage.
Flatpak, is the ideal model for GNOME and KDE, as they mention that the Flathub platform is undergoing a series of transitions as a result of the growth of a service.
Canonical's Snap Store, on the other hand, is also already enjoying some popularity, albeit under the control of a corporate entity rather than a community-controlled nonprofit.
Flathub for its part is governed by an independent desktop committee involving key representatives from the GNOME Foundation and KDE eV, and currently has 1500 contributors who maintain some 1800 applications on the existing service.
In parallel with the technical development of the platform and the launch of the app store functionality, the GNOME Foundation and KDE eV will establish a new legal entity, Flathub LLC, to own and operate the service.
Finally, if you are interested in knowing more about it, you can check the details In the following link.