Earlier this week I released Flatpak 0.8.0. The version change is meant to signal the start of a new long-term supported branch. The 0.8.x series will be strictly bugfixes, and all new

features will happen in 0.9.x.

The release has a few changes, such as a streamlined command line interface and OCI support, but it also has several additions that make Flatpak more future-proof. For instance, we added versioning to all file formats, and a minimal-flatpak-version-required field for applications.

My goal is to get the 0.8 series into the Debian 9 release, and as many other distributions as possible, so that people who create flatpaks can consider the features it supports as a reliable baseline.

Sandboxing has always been one of the pillars of Flatpak, but even more important to me is cross-distro application distribution, even if not sandboxed. This is important because it gives upstream developers a way to directly interact with their users, without having an intermediate distributor. With 0.8 I think we have reached a level where the support for this is solid. So, if you ever thought about experimenting with Flatpak, now is the time!

I leave you with a small screencast showing the new streamlined way to install an application om the command line (on an otherwise empty system):

For information on how to get flatpak, see flatpak.org. Version 0.8.0 is already in the Ubuntu PPA and in Fedora. Other distributions hopefully will get it soon.