Linux distros move toward common app installer API
Recent meetings held among the RedHat, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Mandriva, and Mageia communities has resulted in an informal agreement on an architecture for a common app installer API. Yet the dream of a universal GNU/Linux app-store may be much farther off.
Word of the app-installer meetings at OpenSUSE's Nuremberg, Germany, offices earlier this month emerged last week in a blog post by OpenDesktop.org's Frank Karlitschek on Jan. 24. This was followed by a more detailed Jan. 26 report on the meetings by Swapnil Bhartiya in Muktware.
On Jan. 31, LinuxInsider's Katherine Noyes sampled the Linux blogs and forums for feedback, and found general support for a common app installer, but with plenty of observers predicting doom for the project. The more distant dream of a common app-store for Linux, which was not formally discussed at the main Nuremberg meetings, seemed even more far-fetched to many, though many others deem it a worthy goal.
