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Chapter 1. Project Goals

This is a brief summary of the Listaller project goals. For the Listaller specifications, please see Chapter 5, Specifications
Listaller's design goal is to create an installer solution which is able to install software on multiple distributions by using just one package. It is no replacement for the package management system of a Linux distribution (like Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE, ...), it is merely designed to install additional 3rd-party applications which are not part of the main distribution repositories and do not require tight system integration. Dependencies of software installed with Listaller should therefore be kept minimal, to simplify installations.
The main target audience for Listaller are GUI desktop users who want to install graphical applications (= software which provides a XDG application desktop file). But Listaller is not limited to that, it might also be used to install non-gui stuff on servers, although this case is rarely used at time.
Listaller is developed with the following goals in mind:
  • System Integration: Software installed with Listaller should integrate well with the operating system, while not interfering with it. Listaller applications should be manageable using the general software management tools which the user already knows. Situations where an user has to open one tool to manage just a subset of his/her applications must be avoided. We also give distributors all necessary tools to make Listaller working for their distribution and integrate it nicely into the system and adjust it to the individual dustribution policies (as long as these changes do not break distro-interoperability).
  • Cross-Distro: Listaller should work on all distributions, software packaged as Listaller IPK package should be installable on every distribution, as long as it's dependencies are satisfyable. People creating IPK packages should be able to target the whole audience of Linux users, not just a single distribution.
  • Security: Installing 3rd-party applications which were not checked by the distributor might be a security issue. We therefore give the administrator an option to shut off 3rd-party installs or limit them to some users. Also, Listaller should display meaningful.metainfo.mation to help the user in making a decision to trust the application which is pending install, or to reject it. IPK packages can and should be signed. Listaller should run 3rd-party applications in a sandbox by default.
  • Simplification: Creating Listaller packages should be as easy as possible. IPK packages are built on existing standards, like DOAP, which makes it simple to use existing data for packaging. Also, there should not be corner-cases which cause an installation to fail, so package definitions should be straighforward and script-less, which also increases security. All complexity should be handled by functions built-in Listaller.
  • Developer Tools: We provide tools for developers to make their applications work on many distributions and to minimize the dependencies of an application.
(This list might be extended or changed if necessary)
Listaller is designed to work well with PackageKit and AppSteam to provide a great and user-friendly application-centric software management on Linux distributions. PackageKit is a dependency of Listaller, while AppStream is optional for it's use, but recommended.