[arch-general] Announcing pacpak

[pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)]

On 07/10/2016 03:22 PM, Mauro Santos via arch-general wrote:
> Personally I'd rather keep using the good old packages _but_ it would be
> nice to have an official tool to manage/run/create flatpak packages,
> this just to make sure that in case one needs to use a flatpak package
> nothing will screw up the filesystem and cause more trouble than it's worth.
> 
> However a big fat warning should be present somewhere that bugs/problems
> with flatpak packages are the sole responsibility of upstream/the
> creator as I suspect bugs and problems will be the norm.
> 

Added to TODO list: Warn users.

pacpak is meant to be a tool for building sandboxes from any existing
package. Official tool or not, I do not think it is realistic to make a
guarantee that all Arch packages will work with pacpak or Flatpak in
general.

Some packages or some features of packaged software (e.g. gnome-builder)
cannot fully work with Flatpak because they would require nested
containerization, setuid or similar privileges. Other packages may need
additional privileges such as access to specific files or D-Bus names
which pacpak may not be able to autodetect. Even for autodetected
defaults, the user should review the privileges granted to software. It
should be clear that the pacpak user will be responsible for specifying
such privileges or at least confirm autodetected privilege settings.

Regards,
Florian Pelz