>If you don't understand the value of open source software, you're not obligated to use it. The maintainers of Linux Mint and other Linux distributions do understand, and that is one of the reasons they have rejected Snap.

I understand the value of open source software. I work for the industry building open source drivers and contributed back. But providing/producing and maintaining software isn't free and that is precisely the main motivator that you don't seem to pay attention to.

It's all good using a 100% FOSS stack, but that is irrelevant for the average user who wants to use things like Office, Steam and Spotify. The lack of usable software holds back Linux Desktop. So does your almost Stallman esque attitude to this.

>Your assumption is wrong and you've lost the bet. Additionally, Flatpak is available and Flatpak servers are already being hosted independently:

So you are hosting your own launchpad instance? Please do show me, that and all the wonderful contributions you have made to Canonical to have justified the massive resources they undertook by open sourcing it.

>Additionally, Flatpak is available and Flatpak servers are already being hosted independently:

That is a negative which I have argued multiple times. Multiple locations to have to find software which makes finding useful software harder. The user has to trust random third parties which breaks security.

Yea, Canonical had all those experiences with PPAs and how much of a nightmare that has been.

>Canonical has already transformed apt installs of Chromium into Snap installs, which motivated Linux Mint to reject Snap. Vendor lock-in is not black and white. For example, Android users can also install F-Droid or a variety of third-party app stores, but considering Google Play's default status on Android, most users are effectively locked in. The same applies to Canonical's handling of Chromium, and the Linux community is opposing this to discourage Canonical from continuing this dark pattern.

Funny you are saying this and advocating OpenSource and all this nonsense. Do you know why Canonical moved the chromium binary to snap? It's because maintenance costs were ridiculous. They had to backport their compiler and support versions from 14.04 to 19.10 at the time. They couldn't backport the compiler, and because chromium is a browser, users must be on the latest version for security reasons. It also deeply integrates with the OS via the Linux specific sandboxes which do not work the same from 14.04 to 19.10.

This they were maintaining for FREE. They didn't even have to do this because the officially supported browser is Firefox.

They didn't want to burden the cost for this nonsense and rightfully moved it to snap.

Where is Mint here providing the maintenance costs/burden for providing chromium as a deb here.

Canonical explained it clearly here.

https://ubuntu.com/blog/chromium-in-ubuntu-deb-to-snap-trans...

>For example, Android users can also install F-Droid or a variety of third-party app stores, but considering Google Play's default status on Android, most users are effectively locked in.

You are delusional if you think the situation is anywhere near the closed wall aspects of Android. Canonical doesn't operate it's own safety net or attestation that bans F-Droid or any other distribution. They don't have any controls or inhibitions in place for how users install/distrubte software unlike Android.

>Snap increases the fragmentation, and is more hostile to the FOSS community than all of the other options because its server is closed source.

You seem more hostile to the goals of the FOSS community than they are in my eyes. The person who is preventing Steam Games, WINE, Adobe software etc.. from coming to Linux is people like you.

They can reject snap all they want.