Clear Linux Moving Ahead With Their Third-Party Packaging Support

In recent months we've heard of Intel engineers working on better supporting third-party packages on Clear Linux that would be akin to Arch's AUR, Ubuntu's PPA, or Fedora's Copr systems for allowing unofficial/third-party packages to be more easily made available particularly in cases of closed-source software. It looks like that internally that system is now in beta as they work towards having more software available on Clear Linux.

In response to a mailing list question over whether Clear Linux has any ambitions for a commercial edition and to use the likes of Intel's commercial software offerings on Clear Linux, Intel's Arjan van de Ven commented on those prospects.

Arjan acknowledged that their third-party bundle concept is now in beta and they are investigating as well what it would take to get different Intel software binary products available via that bundling system. This would allow different closed-source Intel software programs to be made available on Clear Linux albeit not part of the core operating system that remains open-source. There is the likes of Intel's Math Kernel Library, ICC, Parallel Studio XE, and a variety of other developer tools and HPC software that Intel offers for free downloads but sadly isn't open-source.

Beyond making it easier to fetch these different Intel software binaries on Clear Linux, this third-party packaging system has been talked about most for allowing the likes of Google Chrome or FFmpeg to potentially come to Clear Linux along this unofficial route.

As a follow-up, Arjan also made it quite clear that Clear Linux is open-source and will remain that way and these software binaries won't be a replacement to any of their existing work.