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> Just fix the bugs and leave the rest to the application developers.

Some dev flat out[0] refuse (and I am not debating if it's right or wrong) to package their app for every distro (even major ones: ubuntu, debian, arch, rhel/fedora) so it's up to distro maintainers to package them so users are always at the end of a line of other people packaging the apps (either through distro packages or sandboxed one click installer).

[0] Words are too strong and user CJefferson https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24384206 is right to call me out on that. I agree, sorry about that. Poor choice of words. I had a very specific example in mind but there's obviously a whole gamut of reasons for not packaging. My position is that we can't nor should we expect dev to package their apps for the distro we use. Also it's no like app devs and distro/os devs/maintainers are living in hermetic boxes and their code/apps never interacting or evolving. Not editing out for context.



I don't like "flat-out refuse". I don't "refuse" to package my apps for every distro any more than I "refuse" to do my neighbour's gardening.

I tried packaging for Debian once and after 2 days I have up -- I have neither the time or patience to do work for distros I don't use for free.


Yeah, there's more than a whiff of entitlement to that phrasing.

If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend looking at fpm for packaging. Unless you're doing something weird or need an obscure format, it is the tool you want.

https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm


> Yeah, there's more than a whiff of entitlement to that phrasing.

I have been thinking about that. I disagree. It's always nitpicking o'clock on HN and I specifically wrote "Some" and specifically wrote in brackets that I wasn't debating if it's either right or wrong. I agree that it should have been worded differently but the facts remains and that doesn't follow that there's “more than a whiff of entitlement“.


I'm not clear what you mean then, to be honest. Anyone who isn't packaging their software is, effectively, flat-out refusing to package it. I don't really see how I, or anyone else, could "more" flat-out refuse.


There's a spectrum. Some don't care, some refuse and some flat-out refuse. I dislike being accused of entitlement because I point that out.


[dead]


Read it again. I'm agreeing with the parent.


Ugh, apologies.




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