Firefox with your CLI it would instead execute the command to install it as snap. Shit like that is just outright disrespectful to the user.

I get it and, at the same time, I get it.

Ubuntu needs to be able to deliver with some level of guarantee for its corporate clients, which means testing. A browser like Firefox has a lot of dynamically linked libraries. How do ensure that it works with all reasonable combinations? 10 libraries with 2 supported versions each is 1024 combinations. A browser will have more libraries and more compatible versions of each, which leads to a massive number of combinations. Nothing like having a support customer with issues because a very specific patch version doesn’t work with another very specific patch version.

Compare that to snap. 1 artifact that contains all dynamically linked libraries. 1 artifact to test and support.

So, now Canonical has a tested and supported snap for a security sensitive application, whose method of delivery also isolates it from the host it runs on. Should they point users to that? Or some upstream binary that may have the above compatibility issues and lacks isolation, and wasn’t tested by them.

Short of it is that DLLs made a lot more sense when storage was expensive and programs were smaller. Now, they are problematic. Containers are a way to address that without having to update a ton of software, and they also improve security. If they hadn’t done it, the community would have torn them a new one for keeping the good stuff for their corporate clients.

That said, there have been a lot of missteps. The inability to have a self-hosted store of snaps (this may have changed since I last checked) and improper packaging of apps like Steam are good examples of this. On the other hand, PCSX2’s 32-bit version ran just fine long after Ubuntu went 64-bit-only.

There is no greater joy than when two of your enemies go to war against each other.

Announcing an impending bankruptcy has the potential to hasten it or, in some cases, cause it. Employees and customers are usually kept in the dark while management and investors know.

Canadian checking in. A bike will never be a replacement for a truck (the best kind of vehicle for city driving) until the front basket can be mounted high enough that the rider cannot see a child in front of them.

This reminds me of PayPal from 25ish years ago. There wasn’t a convenient way to transfer money online and they built a solution. To achieve critical mass, they offered people $10 to sign up and a $10 referral bonus (if your friend get $10 and you get $10). PayPal burned a lot of investor money to do this, but it paid off when they became the dominant payment method for eBay auctions. In short, it was a costly investment that paid off.

Klarna is trying to become the PayPal of e-commerce, displacing credit cards (and PayPal) and becoming the default means of paying online. Once they start to slow in their growth, they can do the following:

• Charge merchant fees.
• Charge service fees.
• Charge interest, (waiving it for debit-like transactions).
• Offer purchaser subscriptions with enhanced features and reduced costs.
• Push exclusivity agreements by offering discounts against steep fees.
• Sell data.

This last point is particularly powerful because they also have the bill of sale, which most payment options don’t. If they offer point-of-sale systems that also collect detailed data, it would further allow them to track people.

I suspect that they are classified in a way that existing restrictions on payment networks do not apply to them. E.g., they may technically be a lending company but act as a payment network; they may be considered the customer in a transaction, that resells the item to the purchaser, etc. Lending companies aren’t expected to work with the copious amounts of detailed data that stores and payment processors do (e.g., Payday Loan doesn’t know I spent part of my loan on a suitcase of Bud Light). Imagine an insurance company knowing how many drinks your table bought at a restaurant, then holding it against you when you make a claim. Or having a job offer revoked because you bought a copy of the Communist Manifesto to see what all the hubbub is about.

Pedant rant:

I take issue with ‘needs a lot of work’, though it is common phrasing. It promotes the false idea that ‘business is more efficient’ by making it sound like the public administrators are too dumb to know how to do their job.

The real issue, in most jurisdictions, is that it needs more and stable funding, and less political interference.