 Everybody welcome back to the channel Today it's gonna be a little bit of a rambly ranty kind of video if you Know me at all or you followed the channel for a little while you'll know that I have a Interesting relationship with Ubuntu and canonical. I don't care for Ubuntu all that much Mostly because they chose Kenoma's their desktop environment when they change they change desktop environments But that's beside the point That's just a personal Preference really my biggest issue. It's always been that they've kind of forced the whole idea of snaps down everybody's throats and I don't care for snaps and some of the what I'm going to be talking about today is Kind of more personal, you know that these are personal feelings and You know ideas that I'm going to be expressing so we'll just start off with That that these are my opinions. They Some of them are going to be based on things that people from canonical have said and kind of my reaction to those things so Let's uh, let's talk about snap. Shall we snap? So first of all if you're a new linux user, you're probably wondering what the hell is a snap so the idea behind the The snap store snap craft snapd all these things that they're all part of the same idea It is a universal package management system that would replace the previous package management system of Dev packages and PPAs That Ubuntu has used since the beginning of time The idea is a good one If you know me, you know, I love they you are and I love they are you are because it's all your software things in one place You don't have to deal with PPAs. I hate PPAs. Everybody hates PPAs They're horrible and nobody should want to use them. There should be a replacement form and So the idea behind the idea behind the snap store the snap craft or whatever Is a good one? So we'll just get that out of the way where we Where we have a problem comes in is the in the way that Ubuntu or canonical itself has licensed the snap store so in in a world in a in a situation where most of the things that Surround Linux specifically and especially in terms of package management In that world where most of those things are open source Snap is not open source. It's closed source is proprietary software. So that is a problem. All right, so Why is it a problem? Why does it why does it matter? Why what why should you care that? Snaps are close source. I mean it's still a good idea, right? I mean, why can't I use it? So I Mean you can use it obviously there's nothing wrong with using something that's closed source If it's closed source for either a reason which usually that reason is money Usually when something is closed source is the reason why they keep it closed sources, you know, Mastinero, right? in this case though the arguments from canonical of why Snaps are closed source is Several they have several arguments some of them make sense some of them don't make sense So the argument that makes the most sense is that PPAs aren't discoverable and it's the snap store is and if they were to open source it There would be multiple instances of the snap store and therefore it would have the same problem of PPAs of having If you want one program you'd have to go to this snap store if you wanted another program you have to go to this snap store and You know, that's basically the problem that they have now, you know P with PPAs and dev files and things like that. That is an excellent argument it's just it's it's by far the best argument that they have there is a Video that I'm going to link to in the description below of Alan Pope who is a He works for canonical. I'm not exactly sure what his title is I think he's like a the community spokesperson or something. I'm not sure Where he explains this stuff and that's by far his best argument of why snap should remain closed source because if you they open Source that there'd be an opportunity for somebody to come in and fork it and make their own snap store And therefore you'd have fragmentation which is You know, I love Linux but fragmentation is a big problem. That's the best. So that's the best argument the other one Which seems to be his main argument and I'm assuming that this is Canonicals argument as well not just popes argument is that and I'm gonna this is mostly a quote some of its paraphrasing It would be a lot of work to open source snaps The benefits of open sourcing snaps are outweighed by the work that would need to go into maintaining the open source project So this is a terrible argument. You're an open source company. I mean Maybe that's not true. Maybe canonical isn't an open source company and we just like to think that they are But for the most part everything that canonical does is You know an open source project. It's you know a boon to Boon to server All the flavors of boon to all of these things are open source now They have done closed source software in the past launch pad is one of those but they eventually open sourced launch pad And that's the one of the examples You know they use it he said One of the only reasons why you'd open source something is to have someone else run another an instance of it So that's the reason why you know people he said that People for a long time wanted them to open source launch pad and then when they did nobody forked it And he he said this as if that's the only reason why Someone would want to open source something and that's a weird I mean he he pulled that back a little bit, which is good because that's a dumb argument and It's just not it's not a good argument so My problem with the same of to this of Snaps being too much work to open source would be Then why are you open sourcing everything else? Why did why wasn't an open source to begin with if you if the transition from closed source to open source is such a monumental task Why it wasn't open source to begin with because by opening sourcing it you would go through and open it to the ability Of the community to participate in its development and it's you know security and all that stuff and it would actually be less work to develop because you'd have more people able to contribute to it now Yes, you would have the problem of People maybe possibly forking it and you know fragmentation happening. That's a Big you know problem But the argument that it's just it was just too much work doesn't really hold a lot of water for me, so That's the argument of why it's closed source. I guess I didn't really Answer the question of why does it matter? It matters because closed source software can't be audited It can't be monitored in any way. It can't be We have no idea What's going on with the snap store or anything now snaps themselves the individual like packages of snaps those things are Open source. Okay, so you can get into the programs themselves and audit them. That's great But the thing that distributes snaps is closed source And that's uh, you know, that's the problem, right? You can't we can't get in there and see what the hell is going on You know, how do we you know, we can't monitor that stuff for security flaws We can't help develop it That's if that's the thing about open source is that what if you have a program or something that you're you know? Using you can go through and actually see the code and if you understand code You can go through and make sure that it's not doing anything nefarious I'm not and I'm not saying, you know, canonical is evil. I Don't think they are but I do think that canonical is a company and they have monetary goals and It's possible that they might someday be driven by those monetary goals to Exert control over the snap system in some way that goes against user interests I don't really have an example, but it could possibly happen, right? Because because because they are a company and they eventually someday will have stock You know shareholders or whatever and it might Come up where they have to can exert control over the snap store, you know, like I suppose they could Start promoting their own they could pull an apple, you know They could start promoting their own software over other open source projects in the snap store They could start charging 30% you know, they can start charging fees to be I mean, I don't think that that's gonna happen But they could because it's closed source they control it all in their iron fist And that's where it becomes a problem. So that's the reason why it matters And it's also just really weird it doesn't fit with the Idea behind canonical at least as I have it I I always consider canonical to be an open-source company, you know, and maybe like I said, maybe it's not And there are companies out there that are you know Duke open source It also have closed-source stuff. But when you think canonical, you always think of you know open-source software and the fact that you know It's not, you know The fact that it's not open-source Just it doesn't seem to fit with you know, what canonical is at least in like an in my in my view of it so There's another good example of why can Snap should be open-source and It's a really weird example, but when you download snapd it creates a folder in your home directory called snap It's not hidden folder. It can't be moved. It can't be renamed. It can't be deleted It's just in your home folder just like your photos and your videos in your desktop and your documents folders and This is the most annoying thing in the world to me And if it were open-source Somebody in the community could go through and make it so that that's just a hidden file Just add a period in front of it and it'd be perfectly fine Yes, it would require some work because every snap probably looks for that specific file I'm sure you know, so that's probably why it hasn't been changed yet But that's just the most annoying thing in the world I'm one of those annoying anal people anal retentive people who just really want to Keep my home directory as simple as possible and the fact that snap will install a You know create a directory there that I can't move Just Makes me so angry. I mean irrationally just tear my hair out furious To the point where I just won't use snaps. I mean honestly I can get you know, though. I don't like that Snaps are closed source Snaps doors closed source. I don't like that, but I use other closed-source software. I use, you know telegram and you know, I use Discord and I use Google Chrome on occasion, you know, so I use other software that is closed-source So, you know, it'd be hypocritical of me to complain too much about it, although I would complain But I wouldn't It's the it's the stupid thing about that file that really just It tips it over the edge where I just can't use it So that's in the end this entire rant just had me talking about all that stuff Just and end up coming down to there's a file in my home directory that I don't like and if the damage Snaps doors store was open-source. Maybe somebody could fix it. There's a bug on a bug report front for snapd That is like three years old maybe even longer about that file and it's just considered wish list And so it's gonna be one of those things. It's just never gonna change because it's just there anyways, so I Told you it was gonna be a ranty You know Rambly video and it was So if you liked it give it a thumbs up if you didn't give it a thumbs down I would love to hear your comments about the snap store in the comments below if you do you use snaps? Do you does that snap file in your home directory? Cause you as much angst as it does me. I would love to know Let's get into conversation because I would love to find somebody who actually doesn't mind it because it it Just tans my height If you want to support the podcast in any number you can do so in an any number of ways follow us on Facebook on Twitter You can support us on patreon at patreon.com slash the linux has you can also subscribe which takes literally no effort We do videos six sometimes seven days a week. We also do a podcast every week So there's just tons of stuff that was going on and you can only find out about those things if you subscribe so Subscribe we appreciate it. We'll catch you next time. Thanks for watching