Further Planning On Ubuntu's New Package System

Yesterday during the virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit to begin working out Ubuntu 13.10 plans were more discussions surrounding the distribution's proposed new packaging system.

Last week I wrote about Ubuntu's plans for their own package format and installer to complement their existing Debian package system. On Tuesday during UDS were more discussions around the proposed "Click" packages that will be focused on Ubuntu and their own software development kit.

Some takeaways include:

- Eventually they will want this package format to be supported on the Ubuntu desktop too, but right now the big focus is using these packages for Ubuntu on mobile devices (phones/tablets).

- With the "Click packages" for Ubuntu they want to try to encourage GPL-compliant packaging by wanting people to also provide their program's source-code rather than just a binary blob.

- Reaffirming what was said last week, these new packages won't have inter-dependencies on other packages. Packages are just expected to rely upon the Ubuntu SDK / base system and otherwise any dependencies/libraries should be bundled inside the package itself.

- As Canonical is hoping to top hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- of packages within their Ubuntu app store, they don't want a full list of the packages to be available locally as is done now. Having a complete listing of all available packages client-side won't scale and consume too much space.

- Package installation/removal is to be done as a "specialized, non-root user."

Embedded below is the complete virtual discussion about the future Ubuntu Click packages.