Disclaimer: I am a Debian user and not a fanboy of Ubuntu or Fedora.



Right now Linux distributions have very good shared-libraries package management systems, and there has been a lot of activity recently around the idea of complementing those with a universal bundled-libraries package management system. Such a system would work equally well on all Linux distributions, be "double-click" easy for users, and easy for developers to package for.



Already about a dozen such systems exist, but the two with the most weight behind them are snaps, developed by Canonical, and flatpaks, developed by Red Hat.



http://snapcraft.io/

http://flatpak.org/



Unfortunately, a standard is only valuable insofar as it is *actually a standard*. https://xkcd.com/927/



Neither flatpaks nor snaps will actually make things easier for developers or users unless one of them is the single standard. Otherwise they will each just be one more system to keep track of and learn.



There has been some vitriol from both sides over the other side being dishonest, stealing their thunder, being uncooperative, etc. Both Canonical and Red Hat seem to be painting themselves as spearheading a broad development effort when in reality both companies (arguably one more than the other but I won't take sides) are working pretty much by themselves on their respective systems.



Moreover, there have been accusations that Canonical/Red Hat is trying to grab control over the Linux application ecosystem and lock people into being dependent on their respective companies. At the very least, the fact that both technologies are so tightly tied to one organization is genuinely worrying.



I believe both Red Hat and Canonical are great, honest organizations full of good people who just want to help Linux and make the platform better. I don't think either of them is *trying* to be anticompetitive - they just haven't done a good job of getting other organizations involved with their projects. I also think it's a shame that there seems to be so much mutual distrust between them.



So, with this petition I would like to ask Canonical and Red Hat to work through their disagreements, talk to each other, and decide on ONE standard system for bundled-libraries Linux applications.



The Proposal

1: Employees from Red Hat and Canonical who are working on flatpaks and snaps all meet face to face with each other one or more times, either IRL or through videoconferencing software.

2: Talk to each other, be nice, resolve the distrust, and realize that ultimately we are all Linux users, freedom appreciators, and we all want FOSS to succeed.

3: Discuss the technical details and challenges facing these systems, what plans both organizations currently have, and the advantages and disadvantages of flatpaks and snaps.

4: Decide on ONE SINGLE file format and ONE SINGLE technology to be the universal "bundled-libraries packaging system" for all Linux distributions.

5: Henceforth, Red Hat and Canonical cooperate together on that one single technology (yes, this means snap, flatpak, or both will be abandoned).



I don't care if they choose snap, flatpak, one of the dozen other ones, or decide to build a new one from scratch. I don't care if they decide to merge the code from both together somehow. I don't care if they decide to pick one but only on the condition of adding features from the other one. I don't care if they use one of the existing names or come up with a new name for it. I just want an actual standard and not myopic, anticompetitive BS.



More links:

https://www.happyassassin.net/2016/06/16/on-snappy-and-flatpak-business-as-usual-in-the-canonical-propaganda-department/

https://lwn.net/Articles/691496/

http://www.valdyas.org/fading/index.cgi/2016/06/17#flatsnapimages