enterprise-ubuntu team mailing list archive

[Bolesław Tokarski <boleslaw.tokarski@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

> First, can you read me? I not sure if I subcribed correctly to the
> mailing list.

Yes, we can read you.

> Second and the main topic: Partner repository is our friend.

I agree with that. It contains a number of software pieces existence of
which offloaded us from a number of issues related to deployment of those.

> We need think about Windows application who has ported for Linux (like
> TeamViewer) and add to partner repo. This us useful, I think, because
> managers will like to see popular applications available for Ubuntu.
> They think "I need app X. That's OK, is ported already".
>
> What you think about it?

Unfortunately, it's not that easy. The "partner repository" you refer to
is actually "Canonical partner repository", so you should read it as
"Repository of software shared in partnership with Canonical". Not every
company providing commercial software for Linux is in partnership with
Canonical. I believe that most of that software is actually packaged by
Canonical employees themselves or at least a proper QA is put by them on
those packages. The idea is that the software worked on Ubuntu as it is
supposed to.

Add to that the licensing restrictions enforced on some pieces of
software. Even if the Canonical partner repository was open for any
upload, the companies providing the software sometimes forbid to
redistribute the software in any form, so it can't be legally uploaded.
One example of that is Oracle Java 7, which is shared on the Oracle's
website is a non-deb format installer that you are not allowed to embed
inside a deb file nor distribute.

I guess the only way forward with this thing is to pressure the software
vendors to provide their Linux app to Canonical and establish some QA to
create a proper deb package for the partner repository.

For the time being we can help each other in the community by providing
information on making a particular software piece working in Ubuntu and
on making that easily available to the corporate desktops. We have
solved the Oracle Java case by providing a deb package internally, so
this does not constitute redistribution.

Cheers,
Ballock