Re: Proposal for reducing the number of unremovable apps in GNOME Software

[Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>]

On Mon, 2017-11-06 at 07:50 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 6, 2017 at 7:16 AM, Allan Day <aday gnome org> wrote:
> > Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net> wrote:
> > ...
> > > > > I don't see the relation between sandboxable and unremovable.
> > > >
> > > > On an image-based OS, wouldn't it be the case that anything
> > > that's
> > > > not a flatpak would be part of the image, and therefore
> > > unremovable?
> > > > I've been looking at this issue recently from a slightly
> > > different
> > > > perspective and wondered whether "part of the base OS" might be
> > > a
> > > > simpler and more natural replacement for
> > > <mandatory_for_desktop>.
> > >
> > > Seems to me that the whole problem is that gnome-software keeps
> > > the
> > > "package" uninstallable even if the same application is installed
> > > via
> > > Flatpak.
> > >
> > > Fix that, and you don't need to make any changes to the appdata
> > > files.
> >
> > I'm thinking about a "pure" system that doesn't have any packages -
> > it's just an ostree-based image with flatpaks installed on it. My
> > understanding is that, in this situation, some apps would be
> > shipped as part of the image, and that these apps wouldn't be
> > removable.
>
> That is really a side-effect of how the OS is deployed. If that is
> all this is about, we can remove all the 'mandatory' markings -
> things in the base image will not be removable anyway.
> I would be in favor of that. Lets treat our users as grown-ups who
> can make their own decisions.

I read that as "Let users shoot themselves in the foot". There are no
expectations that gnome-shell is tested with Calendar, Clocks or
Weather uninstalled.

I'm really not in favour of returning to the bag of bits distribution
model.

I also don't see why how the OS is deployed is relevant. ostree based
images are still not the way that the majority of GNOME installations
are made and given that the apps shipped that way are uninstallable,
the "mandatory for desktop" setting is irrelevant and ignored.