Flatpak integration with desktop systems
The Future of Flatpak
© Lead Image © Viktor Gmyria. 123RF.com
Flatpak's development may have been prompted by container development, but its future depends on the desktop.
Alternative systems for distributing software are on the rise. In 2018, everyone was talking about Flatpak and Snap. In addition, AppImage, which does not require any basic installation, offers completely self-sufficient packages.
Flatpak [1], developed by Fedora under the leadership of Alexander Larsson, is compatible with desktop applications. It lets you package software so that the same package works on all distributions. The only requirement is a matching Flatpak runtime environment.
Origins
Flatpak, which reached version 1.0 in mid-2018, is now considered mature enough for production use. The current version is 1.50. The origin of the format dates back to 2007, when Red Hat employee Larsson was experimenting with klik [2], AppImage's predecessor. However, he did not like some of the technical details. In the same year, he released Glick, which was based on FUSE [3], due to the lack of container APIs, which had not yet been invented.
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