I wonder how many Linux users are using something as unreliable and 
untrustworthy as a cloud storage provider that uses a proprietary interface?

I use syncthing to keep my files under my control, and it works 
wonderfully on SL7.x. I also find to the extent I have to use Box (what 
Cornell provides for "cloud storage"), the web UI works in Firefox ESR 
just fine.

I also wonder how much appimages / flatpaks / snaps will help with this? 
I already find that software in an appimage "just works" for what I've 
tried (VLC and Kdenlive to name a couple).

I guess I don't know the market, but I feel like with IBM also involved, 
if you want to try and cater to enterprise linux at all, you'll be 
looking at also supporting EPEL. Though I don't know how interested 
dropbox is in large contracts. Maybe Box (though I have no idea if 
they've a rpm or local program of some sort) is targeting that market more?

--
James Pulver
CLASSE Computer Group
Cornell University

On 1/7/19 7:43 AM, MAH Maccallum wrote:
> Jose is of course quite right about the Dropbox
> developers and indeed I have protested to
> the Dropbox people about their unreasonable
> attitude. However, that does not solve the problem.
> 
> I emphasize that this is just an example of a recurrent
> problem I have had about the availability of libraries
> and support packages under SL. So while I appreciate
> Jose's point about stability etc. I'm surprised users at
> CERN, Fermilab etc are not pressing on that point more
> often (maybe they are, unknown to me) and causing more
> effort to bring things up to date.
> 
> Malcolm
> 
> On 07/01/2019 12:35, Jose Marques wrote:
>>> On 7 Jan 2019, at 12:16, MAH Maccallum <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>> For example I cannot currently use Dropbox under SL
>>> although I have manually re-partitioned and re-formatted
>>> to use ext4 rather than xfs, since Dropbox insists on ext4.
>>> The error message tells me I do not have glibc 2.19, and
>>> advises I should update to Ubuntu 14.04+ or Fedora 21+
>>
>> I would say that DropBox and other software vendors are at fault. They are putting their developer convenience above that of their users. Having said that the desktop Linux market is so small that it does not make commercial sense to do otherwise. The whole point of SL/Centos is that it is stable and doesn't change. This has the side-effect of making the later point releases quite out of date. I believe RHEL8 is in beta so this will reset the clock.
>>
>> I can't speak to Ubuntu except to say that 14 is quite old. For Fedora you really want to be on the latest release. We upgraded our labs to Fedora 28 late last year and are already having to update to Fedora 29 due to serious issues in updates to the former release. Even when there are no problems we find that more packages break with time. Previous releases may still be under "support" but they get less developer love than the latest release.
>>
>> The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland, No. SC013532.
>>