14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical is developing a new package format called Snappy that will bring a lot of new features to the desktop, like containment, carefree dependencies, and security, just to name a few. From the looks of it, the new Debian leader is concerned that it might affect the free software ecosystem, in the long run.
Debian has a new leader, Neil McGovern, and he is determined to bring a lot of new ideas to the project, including the addition of PPA repositories, which would certainly make a difference. He also made some comments regarding the development of Snappy package and their possible effect on the Linux ecosystem.
Canonical announced a while ago that it was working on a new packaging system, which they called click at that time. In fact, if you build an app for Ubuntu Touch right now, it will be a click file. In any case, Snappy is the evolution of those click packages, and it's already being used for Ubuntu Snappy Core. It's true that that distro is aimed at embedded hardware or various IoT devices, but it will soon land on the desktop as well.
Canonical will soon have two different Ubuntu versions in the wild, one based on deb packages and the other one based on Snappy. These two iterations will be supported for the foreseeable future, but it also raises questions about the future of the Ubuntu-Debian relationship.
Snappy could cause some compatibility problems
Ubuntu is an open source project and the same can be said about Snappy. Canonical is doing its own thing that helps them with Ubuntu Touch and the Ubuntu desktop, but it might cause some confusion or incompatibility problems in the Linux community. Or, at least, this is what Neil McGovern seems to think.
"The Snappy concept from Canonical seems to be geared towards cloud and IoT developments, rather than the traditional desktop or server offering. I think it offers some advantage for Canonical, but I'm a little concerned about the splitting off of development time and effort. It seems that they'll eventually move a lot of the application side over to Snappy, and I don't think that will help compatibility with the rest of the free software ecosystem," said Neil in an expansive interview for Linux.com.
Snappy is still pretty far from becoming a pillar in Ubuntu development, but it's getting there. Ubuntu is the most used Linux operating system out there, so it's clear that Snappy will have an impact. It remains to be seen if that impact will be felt in a positive way outside the Ubuntu ecosystem.