ubuntu-appstore-developers team mailing list archive

[Jamie Strandboge <jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 07/26/2013 02:54 AM, Simon wrote:
> So Click will put its efforts into running with Mir first.
> But after everything works fine with Mir, Click will gain support for X.org and
> (if used by a actual desktop environment) Wayland?
> 
> Did I interpreted it right now?
> 
No, but also see Rick's response (and my reply to him). I apologize for not
being clear-- there are a lot of moving parts and many are interrelated:

 * click packaging itself
 * the app store
 * the app review process
 * application confinement
 * the environment the app runs in (Unity 8 (Mir), Unity 7 (X), flavors, etc)

Click packaging itself doesn't care about desktop environment, Mir, apparmor or
anything else. It is not tightly-coupled to Ubuntu and AppArmor and is entirely
self-contained such that people, flavors, projects, distributions, etc can use
click packaging however they want to. I might add that my experience is that it
is simple and easy to work with. :)

The Ubuntu app store will deliver software using click packaging.

Ubuntu has an app review process for packages being offered in the Ubuntu app
store. A goal of this review process is to not require code review. If there is
no code review, there is the possibility that malicious software could be added
to the app store for users to install. Therefore, Ubuntu must provide
application confinement to protect its users so a malicious app can't steal
users data, grab keystrokes, execute arbitrary code, etc.

To be effective, application confinement must consider the environment the app
runs in. Mir provides an environment where the keyboard cannot be sniffed. X
does not. There is a lot to do to make application confinement work well and the
security team has thus far pragmatically prioritized work on things other than X
because of Mir.

Click has the concept of hooks. Projects can use hooks to extend its
functionality to better integrate with the OS. Ubuntu is providing an AppArmor
hook for click so that apps from the Ubuntu app store run under application
confinement.

As you can see, click is not dependent on application confinement, Mir, X or
anything else and, as said, people and projects can start using it now. I was
answering from the perspective of the Ubuntu app store (this is the
ubuntu-appstore-developers list after all ;). IMHO, because the app store's
goals require application confinement to be in place and X AppArmor mediation
will not be in place for 13.10, we should, for now, not expose Ubuntu app store
apps to desktop environments that use X.

> Am 25.07.2013 18:26, schrieb Jamie Strandboge:
>> On 07/25/2013 10:45 AM, Simon wrote:
>>> How do we handle other desktop environments. Will I be able to install
>>> Click-Packages in Xfce / KDE / Gnome?
>>>
>>> Will I be able to run those installed Applications?
>>> If I'm able to run those applications, we need to support X.org. We also need to
>>> support Wayland in a (not so far away) future.
>>>
>>> If we cut those flavors out of the App-Ecosystem [ie. answer my first or 2nd
>>> question with "no"], how will we answer the user the question "Why can't I used
>>> a core feature of Ubuntu in his offical supported falvors?"
>>>
>>>
>>> I hope I didn't misinterpreted this thread. My interpretation is "Are we able to
>>> support X.org with click? - Eventually no, because X.org dosn't meet our desired
>>> security level."
>>
>> That is not what I said.
>>
>> What I am saying is that we need display server mediation so that people can run
>> the apps from the appstore safely and we should wait until it is in place. Mir
>> gives us that by design, X does not. There is a lot of work to do and we must
>> prioritize, and X is lower than other work because of Mir. AIUI, other desktop
>> environments can be made to work with Mir[1], so if they use Mir (or probably
>> Wayland), there is no problem.
>>
>> If you or others would like to work on X mediation with AppArmor, please send an
>> email to the apparmor mailing list or talk to us on #apparmor on OFTC.
>>
>> [1]https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2013-June/037307.html
>> [2]https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/apparmor
>>
>>
>>
> 


-- 
Jamie Strandboge                 http://www.ubuntu.com/

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