Snaps: a failed experiment

[Sam Varshavchik]

Liam Proven writes:

> On Tue, 23 Sept 2025 at 13:22, Sam Varshavchik <mrsam at courier-mta.com> wrote:
>
> «
> when snaps are fully functional on a modern desktop
> »
>
> You may not be aware but Ogra, who has commented to you, is one of the
> people who built and maintains Snap.

Cool. Unfortunately, it's unclear why this matters when it comes to making  
statements of fact regarding snaps' current functionality. Perhaps that  
would be relevant in the context of discussing snaps' future roadmap,  
related to the issue at hand, since someone involved in snap development  
would certain have better information on that topic.

But when it comes to merely listing known, existing issues with snaps, the  
relevance of that ranks about the same as me claiming to be Lord High  
Posterchild Of The Known Universe.

> You are being arrogantly wrong about the tool _to its creator._ That's
> beyond rude. It's awful behaviour.

I disagree that it's "rude", or "awful behavior" to merely state a true  
fact: snaps are not fully functional on a modern desktop. I did not state  
"all" modern desktops, just "a" modern desktop. VNC sessions are not some  
exotic creature used by just a few lost souls on the third planet from the  
Sun. They are fairly common and widespread and it is not unreasonable to  
expect them to work in a fairly reasonable, common, situation.

I agree that it might be unreasonable to expect them to be perfect,  
especially when they are comparatively a new kid on the block. Which is why  
2-3 years ago, when this initially came up, I grinned and beared it, and  
resorted to the workarounds, expecting that it's just a small technical  
speedbump that'll get ironed out soon. Based on all that happened – or  
didn't happen – I no longer think that, and I simply wrote a message to  
that effect. I disagree that I wrote anything that was "rude" or "arrogant".  
I did not single anyone, or any group out. However, if someone disagrees, I  
won't argue that they're not entitled to their opinions.

P.S. It would be useful if you were to explain, in detail, what was "wrong"  
about what I wrote. I wrote just that the Firefox snap has never worked in a  
VNC session, going for ~2 years now. That's it. How is that "wrong"?

> Snap works fine. You may have encountered an issue but you are
> arrogantly and wrongly blaming the entire snap tooling for one edge
> case you've found in one app.

It may very well be that the actual technical issue lies not with the snaps  
themselves but with some obscure technical integration bit. But it's rather  
naive and unrealistic to expect everyone to immediately diagnose that, out  
of the box. It is also naive and unrealistic to expect everyone to accept  
that as a satisfactory explanation, and move on. Great. It's a  
malfunctioning widget, oh well, now everything's hunky-dory, just can't run  
a browser any more. No big deal.

All that anyone sees is something that simply does not work at all (sorry if  
this desecrates someone's sacred cow, but I don't care). All that anyone  
observes is that the Firefox snap does not run in a VNC session, out of the  
box, and it is not realistic to expect anyone to immediately know which  
technical bit broke.

A response that "well, it's not the snap itself but library X that's the  
problem" really looks like buck-passing and finger-pointing.

> This makes you look very mean-spirited -- and very foolish, and you
> seem not to realise it. For that reason I am being more delicate and
> circumspect than I usually am. You will probably get angry anyway.

Oh, please. No worries, occasionally I've been called a lot worse over the  
years, and this never bothered me. I have a policy that I only get mad or  
upset if I grant someone permission in advance, to make me mad or upset.  
Noone can discombobulate me without my permission, and no such permission  
was given to anyone, in the instant case. This is not addressed just to you,  
but to noone in particular: feel free to fling whatever insults you prefer,  
at me. I'm a big boy.

You can have your last word, I see nothing productive that can result from  
this thread, any more.

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