Speaker
Description
Getting software to end users has always been an issue those who create the software have been worried about. A great many solutions have been proposed and attempted for this problem, and in this talk you will see an overview of the history of these attempts, and a discussion of some of the advantages and flaws each of them presents.
Recently, a lot of attention has been paid to three attempts at getting software to users, in the form of Flatpak, Snapcraft and AppImage. These, however, have not been the only attempts at making it easier for both software developers, and your humble speaker has been involved in one way or another with a number of attempts for several years now, both as a volunteer contributor and as part of employment.
In this talk we will explore the many ways this has been done, both high profile and more quiet attempts, some very interesting approaches, and some which have turned out to be less than successful. We will see what we can learn from those attempts, and we will see where we go from here.
Authors' Bio
Dan, or Leinir as they are known to most, has been an active part of the KDE community for about a decade, through their time at university, which resulted in a Master's degree in Information Technology specialising in Game and Engine Programming. Recently they were a part of the Calligra team which cooperated with Intel on the creation of Calligra Gemini, an office suite designed for use with multi form factor devices, and which they are now the official maintainer of. After the conclusion of that project, they were hired by blue systems to do everything in their power to assist in KDE's wide reaching software goals, which so far has included work on KNewStuff, the Peruse comic book reader and creator apps, and plenty of other little bits all over the place. Outside of employment, they have worked on the Amarok and GamingFreedom.org projects, and outside of KDE is an author of science fiction and not too shabby when it comes to knocking up a bit of food.
