Completely agree. Furthermore, you could always just not pipe it to sh, read it first if you care so much. Releasing and maintaining packages across a range of distros is extremely hard and time consuming, and they just released the linux version.

It's time consuming only if author interested in good UX. If author wants to use their users as alpha-testers, then he can spent a minimal amount of time on packaging.

Given that it's open source, it's not the authors' problem to package it. You can package it for your distro, or wait for someone to do it.

It will be better because you presumably use it. Chances are that the authors don't use the same distro as you do, so they are not in a good position to make a package for you.

Of course, nobody forces author to do anything, but insecure installation method will continue to generate loud warning about insecurity.

What makes it insecure?

It's other way around. Any method of installation is insecure by default. Moreover, hackers are able to penetrate even multi-layered security defence systems sometimes (for a short period of time). What makes this 0-security system secure?

I don't think I understand your point?

My argument is that the install method is just piping a curl command to your shell is _no less secure_ than any other typical application install procedure, and the user experience is pretty decent.

I don't think we should be generating "loud warnings" about so called "insecure install methods" nor should we fault the Zed authors for not solving software security.

Yes, an one 0 security installation method cannot be less secure than an other 0 security installation method. Both are insecure.

However, when source code and compilation instructions are available, an independent maintainer can verify source manually, compile it in isolation, test in it in isolation, make patches, add SELinux rules, make package, then sign the package, to produce a secure package, which can be safely consumed by end users.

The point is that when you use a distro, you trust that distro and its maintainers. If you use the package they build for you, then you rely on this trust.

Now if you use a random script from the internet, then you don't give your distro maintainers a chance to actually review the package and instead you blindly trust this script. Arguably you increase your attack surface.

Also a system package manager checks the packages (there is signatures and stuff), whereas piping a script to curl doesn't do that at all. So if the server is compromised, you just execute random code. It's harder to compromise the system package manager.

Curl checks the https certificate.

Distro maintainers in general do not audit the code they package.

> Curl checks the https certificate.

Which is not the same thing as a signature on the package, is it?

> Distro maintainers in general do not audit the code they package.

First, it depends on the distro. Second, they certainly do at least some kind of due diligence before packaging a new project. So there is some amount of selection (which you don't find in npm, cargo or pypi).

I don't see how maintaining a 150 lines script is more convenient and less of a hassle to maintain than having a pipeline building a flatpak, an rpm, a deb and a plain tarball with binaries.

In 2024, everyone looking for a code editor knows how to extract a tar.gz right?

> In 2024, everyone looking for a code editor knows how to extract a tar.gz right?

I'll raise my hand and say I still get the `tar` terminal command options confused and have to pause and figure out the file format I'm dealing with and the options. So, no, I usually don't know, and have to look it up in the manpage/help. "Was it -xvfz for this one? Shit I just did this recently..."

You don't even need a terminal if you can't remember the options. Extracting an archive is done by any half decent file manager.

> Releasing and maintaining packages across a range of distros is extremely hard and time consuming

That's why Flatpak exists

macOS for example checks the crypto signatures of downloaded apps, so it’s much better than randomly executing code from the internet. I think even Windows does this nowadays.

Linux distributions are doing this for 30 years.

Yes, if the script you're running adds a repository and uses the native package manager, which is not always the case.

Because you don't know how the script is going to try to install the program. A double-click installer on Windows has a standard approach that results in the program being placed in C\Program Files and the files being tracked and an uninstaller being placed in a centralized location. On Linux, any random "installer script" could spew files all over your /usr or anywhere else with no way to clean them up. This could even break your OS.

The Linux equivalent to double-click installer is ... a double-click installer, Flatpak. Or for even more bonus points, make the app fully portable as an AppImage. In the rare case I can't find what I'm looking for in my distribution repos, I look for an AppImage.

> A double-click installer on Windows has a standard approach

Maybe today. In the past, I’ve had them spit stuff all over random places— not to mention registry cruft.