<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:03:20
!startmeeting FESCO (2025-07-22)
<@meetbot:fedora.im>
17:03:21
Meeting started at 2025-07-22 17:03:20 UTC
<@meetbot:fedora.im>
17:03:21
The Meeting name is 'FESCO (2025-07-22)'
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:03:24
!meetingname fesco
<@meetbot:fedora.im>
17:03:25
The Meeting Name is now fesco
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:03:29
!group members fesco
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:03:29
!topic Init Process
<@zodbot:fedora.im>
17:03:31
**Usage:** !group members <groupname>
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:03:32
!hi
<@fale:fale.io>
17:03:34
!hi
<@zodbot:fedora.im>
17:03:34
Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek (zbyszek)
<@nirik:matrix.scrye.com>
17:03:36
morning.
<@zodbot:fedora.im>
17:03:36
Fabio Alessandro Locati (fale) - he / him / his
<@dcantrell:fedora.im>
17:03:38
!hi
<@zodbot:fedora.im>
17:03:39
David Cantrell (dcantrell) - he / him / his
<@humaton:fedora.im>
17:03:54
!hi
<@zodbot:fedora.im>
17:03:55
Tomáš Hrčka (humaton) - he / him / his
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:04:02
!hi
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:04:02
We have quourum.
<@decathorpe:fedora.im>
17:04:02
!hi
<@zodbot:fedora.im>
17:04:03
Michel Lind (salimma) - he / him / his
<@zodbot:fedora.im>
17:04:04
Fabio Valentini (decathorpe) - he / him / his
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:04:49
quourum, the British spelling of quorum
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:04:51
:P
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:05:09
All those extra letters just make it seriouser. It's a feature of the language.
<@decathorpe:fedora.im>
17:05:13
so it's pronounced kwoo-rum?
<@decathorpe:fedora.im>
17:05:59
(as opposed to kwoh-rum ;))
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:06:39
I'm here
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:06:41
!topic #3445 Change: Filter Fedora Flatpaks for Atomic Desktops
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:06:41
!link https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/3445
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:06:55
Sorry, was running late from lunch and my phone Matrix app wasn't connecting
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:07:16
There were a few messages in the ticket.
<@nirik:matrix.scrye.com>
17:07:18
I have not read the stuff in the last 18 hours or whatever. I don't think I want to vote on this today... FWIW
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:07:21
PTAL if you haven't today.
<@nirik:matrix.scrye.com>
17:07:55
I have not read the stuff in the last 12 hours or whatever. I don't think I want to vote on this today... FWIW
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:08:04
!hi
<@zodbot:fedora.im>
17:08:05
Neal Gompa (ngompa) - he / him / his
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:08:15
I did actually read the blog post from @mcatanzaro a couple hours ago. It's quite a good breakdown.
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:08:19
I don't want to vote on this today.
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:08:38
I read it, but I need time to think about how I want to discuss it.
<@fale:fale.io>
17:08:44
the part that is not very clear to me is the relation between "let's filter some flatpaks" with "we like flathub or not
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:08:58
is Firefox a flatpak on Silverblue? or RPM
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:09:03
RPM
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:09:24
ah ok. but it's an example of "if you're on ARM, surprise surprise flathub is incomplete" - I'm sure there are other examples
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:09:37
surely if flathub does not have a package it's better to show the Fedora flatpak than have nothing
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:09:45
separate from "what if both provide a package for a given arch"
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:09:52
I don't particularly want to have even implied Flathub over Fedora
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:10:25
I need to read Catanzaro's essay on this too
<@dcantrell:fedora.im>
17:10:56
I started reading it this morning but then got pulled in to an urgent thing, as is every workday
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:11:00
OK, so we have three (unless I missed someone) fesco people saying that they need more time. Michael also mentioned that in the ticket.
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:11:08
Ah, four.
<@decathorpe:fedora.im>
17:11:19
yeah this is too early to vote IMO
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:11:36
Something I proposed the last time this topic came up (years ago) was allowing distributions to sign Flathub flatpaks such that we could essentially give them a Fedora Seal of Approval to specific ones. Just want to throw that back into the ring...
<@nirik:matrix.scrye.com>
17:12:07
based on what critera?
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:12:11
did Michael actually suggest replacing even RPMs like Firefox with Fedora flatpaks?
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:12:12
!info Some lengthy comments were posted today, so we'll give people at one more week to catch up and discuss.
<@fale:fale.io>
17:12:16
My read of the proposal is not about flathub but filtering fedora flatpaks... am I missing something?
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:12:20
(for Silverblue, since I read it as "only for image based OS")
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:12:50
nirik: "Has passed a packaging review and this particular flatpak has been through Bodhi"
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:13:19
Silverblue aims to try to use Flatpak Firefox, but Kinoite will not
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:13:36
FWIW for his proposal -- as opposed to the proposal in the ticket - I quite like turning off GNOME Software's ability to manage RPMs by default. just saying
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:13:49
The ability to remove the default browser is an unwanted capability since it leaves users without the ability to discover documentation in failure cases
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:13:52
we get more confusion by internal users asking why they have two package caches than we get benefits
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:14:11
(the two package cache thing is gone with the dnf5daemon thing for g-s)
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:14:24
oh, finally. so ... since f42? or f43
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:14:28
f43
<@dcantrell:fedora.im>
17:14:36
the average user simply wants to install the one that works and they don't care where it comes from or who built it
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:14:54
there is no such thing as the "average user" for us
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:15:11
let's not use a nonexistent entity as a scapegoat for arguments here
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:15:11
By filtering fedora flatpaks, the ones from flathub are always selected when possible. So this is effectively about picking the latter.
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:15:28
dcantrell: The same average user who plugs a USB key they found on the ground into their computer to see what's on it? :-)
<@fale:fale.io>
17:15:31
zbyszek: if the user has enabled flathub, sure
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:15:48
we can ask "ok among fesco members who use flathub". I do for some software, so I suspect among non-packagers / non-developers it is quite common
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:16:06
Fale: yeah, but the assumption (apparently backed by data) is that most users have that.
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:16:09
so I think just saying "no flathub, full stop" is not a viable option
<@decathorpe:fedora.im>
17:16:18
just to make sure - is there much value in having a discussion today if >50% of us say we need more time to discuss this?
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:16:26
there isn't
<@dcantrell:fedora.im>
17:16:26
I use flathub for things we don't provide
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:16:32
I think we should punt
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:16:34
Fabio Valentini: Not willing to vote != not worth discussing
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:16:42
same
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:16:55
which is only three applications
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:17:05
all of them are horrible electron apps
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:17:07
Me too. Two or three apps.
<@dcantrell:fedora.im>
17:17:29
Stephen Gallagher: you know the hypothetical I'm talking about. the user who is using a computer to complete a task, not someone like us who use computers simply because we want to use computers and like difficult shit. if Fedora is not interested in catering to the former, then we're just coming to agreement on how complicated we want things to be
<@davide:cavalca.name>
17:17:30
(a vetted subset of) flathub to backfill things that Fedora doesn't ship seems reasonable to me; prioritizing flathub over things that Fedora ships IMO defeats the purpose of having a distribution in the first place
<@nirik:matrix.scrye.com>
17:17:39
I use it for some things... less since I am on aarch64 now (no chrome, no zoom, no discord)
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:18:01
Atomic Fedora for non-x86 should just end if we do this, they are not useful products in that case
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:18:19
Davide Cavalca: note that Michael's position is more pro-flathub than you - he was saying only default apps should be fedora flatpaks, the assumption being presumably that we could retire most of the others
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:18:53
but yeah it will be funny if you only build some fedora flatpaks for aarch but not for x86 - won't even save much time on the builders since they are just repackaged RPMs right
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:19:15
also unlike RPMs, fedora flatpaks are automatic
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:19:38
"Automatic" in what sense?
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:20:02
they do not require manual effort to build and rebuild
<@davide:cavalca.name>
17:20:21
yeah my main point is that Linux distributions exist to ship software to users; if we abdicate this and instead just ship content from flathub, an entity we have no control over and with quality and licensing policies vastly different from ours, it removes a lot of value for Fedora users
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:20:25
(my understanding is that this isn't done yet, but nothing stops yselkowitz from just doing a cron job of builds and rebuilds now)
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:21:12
git work isn't required to build flatpaks from our content
<@decathorpe:fedora.im>
17:21:15
well, the fact that the flatpak build pipeline has been broken since the DC move kinda does prevent it :)
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:21:27
Which is why I think there could still be value in Fedora as a signatory rather than a producer of this content.
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:21:34
well there is that, but lots of things broke with the DC move
<@nirik:matrix.scrye.com>
17:21:55
There's only a very few left (like that one)
<@yselkowitz:fedora.im>
17:22:13
!hi
<@zodbot:fedora.im>
17:22:14
Yaakov Selkowitz (yselkowitz)
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:22:31
Hi Yaakov. Welcome to the discussion.
<@fale:fale.io>
17:23:15
ratifying flathub's might be even harder than producing flatpaks, since flathub structure and policies are very different from Fedora's
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:23:17
We are not going to vote.
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:23:18
alas no
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:23:46
but I don't like all these attempts to end-run around Fedora contributors
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:23:57
nirik: We agreed not to vote, not to skip the discussion
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:24:09
yeah
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:24:19
what about we just let Fedora Workstation WG sort this out first
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:24:30
since they've been working on this for... a few months now
<@nirik:matrix.scrye.com>
17:24:56
ok. I don't feel like I can fully contribute to the discussion because I haven't read the things you all are reacting to... but ok.
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:24:58
and say unless Workstation WG give up and ask FESCo to decide, let them decide at least for the Workstation product (which includes Silverblue iirc)
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:25:23
there are some things about Michael's blog post that have deeply upset me too :(
<@yselkowitz:fedora.im>
17:25:38
note that the change proposal (last I checked) would affect all atomic desktops, not just silverblue though
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:25:48
I don't know how to respond to it without feeling like I'm going off the rails
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:26:16
yup, in which case we can reject it and say hey let Workstation finish their deliberations first
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:26:20
Michel Lind UTC-5: I think this goes further than the Workstationg WG. It's about setting the general development direction. So I don't think we should send this back to the WG at this point.
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:26:25
(note: not voting today, just suggesting an option)
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:26:32
ah, fair
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:26:36
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Michael's blog post ALSO advised against making Flathub the preferred provider *at this time*.
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:26:36
I don't think we can send it back to the WG at all
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:26:53
his blog post self-contradicts
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:27:11
It was optimistic about eventually making Flathub good enough to be in that position
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:27:15
it is _pro forma_ the preferred provider by filtering out everything
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:27:28
ie being preferred without explicitly saying so
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:27:42
Timothee or Michael?
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:27:50
Michael
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:28:01
Timothee's CP seems mostly aligned with Michael's blog post - they both say "Fedora flatpaks for default apps"
<@decathorpe:fedora.im>
17:28:08
well, more like ... "the scales will be tipped more towards flathub being the better option in the future [me doubts], but not necessarily *right now*"
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:28:28
the CP text is not explicitly sayin it, Michael's blog post does
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:28:35
the CP text is not explicitly saying it, Michael's blog post does
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:29:08
the _intent_ is to make Flathub the default provider by simply eliminating the possibility of Fedora Flatpaks showing up
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:29:33
I thought Michael's was saying the opposite:
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:29:37
and this is particularly an issue with Workstation because Flatpak > RPM order means no Fedora content is ever surfaced
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:29:50
It's less of an issue in KDE because RPM > Flatpak order
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:29:55
We'd build the default apps in the Fedora Flatpak system and prefer those for that use-case and Flathub for other things
<@yselkowitz:fedora.im>
17:30:07
but kinoite...?
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:30:18
(I don't necessarily agree, but I think that was what was proposed by Michael)
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:30:23
yeah, I'm opposed to this for Kinoite on principle too
<@decathorpe:fedora.im>
17:31:11
(I'm getting a headache and this discussion isn't helping - I need to step away from glowing pixels for a bit)
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:31:30
tbh, I don't really want to discuss this issue at all either
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:32:41
it's extremely upsetting to me as a Fedora contributor
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:32:51
bring this back to the ticket? (I get the same feeling everytime flatpaks come up and both those meetings are on Tuesdays)
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:33:45
OK, so for the meeting summary:
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:33:45
!link https://yselkowitz.github.io/blog/2025/02/25/the-case-for-fedora-flatpaks.html
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:33:45
!link https://blogs.gnome.org/mcatanzaro/2025/07/21/fedora-must-carefully-embrace-flathub/
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:33:45
!link https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/proposal-enable-flathub-by-default/157011
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:33:45
!link https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/f43-change-proposal-filter-fedora-flatpaks-for-atomic-desktops-self-contained/157262
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:33:45
!link https://pagure.io/fedora-workstation/issue/463
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:34:16
OK, let's move on.
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:34:24
!topic Next week's chair
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:34:32
Volunteers?
<@sgallagh:fedora.im>
17:34:55
I should be able to do it.
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:35:07
!action Stephen will chair next meeting
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:35:09
Thanks!
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:35:15
!topic Open Floor
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:36:35
A long cab ride may be required ;)
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:36:49
Anyway, if we have nothing, I'll close in a minute.
<@nirik:matrix.scrye.com>
17:36:51
Oh, I had one small thing...
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:36:54
Go!
<@nirik:matrix.scrye.com>
17:37:27
we have several nonresponsive maintainer tickets... reminder that the process for these is not like other tickets. It's not a majority vote and approved.
<@nirik:matrix.scrye.com>
17:37:30
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fesco/Policy_for_nonresponsive_package_maintainers/#steps
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:37:50
Yep, they require extra handling.
<@nirik:matrix.scrye.com>
17:37:59
so, we should remember to process them right.
<@salimma:fedora.im>
17:38:06
no no, it just means I have plausible deniability if I don't vote ;)
<@nirik:matrix.scrye.com>
17:39:12
thats all. :)
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:39:54
nirik: I didn't think I did anything wrong, but sorry if I did
<@decathorpe:fedora.im>
17:39:55
yeah, we should double-check that the last 2-3 tickets were handled correctly. for example, Kai has responded in ticket, so it shouldn't be marked as approved, right?
<@nirik:matrix.scrye.com>
17:41:33
Conan Kudo: no worries... it's a bit confusing a process...
<@decathorpe:fedora.im>
17:42:02
and Miro posted something on Rex' ticket, the @ -mention reminder at week 2 was missing
<@nirik:matrix.scrye.com>
17:42:03
especially because it's time based
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:42:28
Fabio Valentini: he's been gone since 2023, he hasn't responded to any emails in a year
<@decathorpe:fedora.im>
17:42:30
I hope I handled the one for fab correctly but I tried to follow the policy document
<@decathorpe:fedora.im>
17:43:01
sure, but that's not really a reason to skip a step that won't change the outcome anyway
<@nirik:matrix.scrye.com>
17:43:04
anyhow, just wanted to raise awareness... if someone wants to check the pending ones that would be great, or I can try to later too.
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:43:35
well, it's a problem with some of the KDE stuff that only has rex as the owner
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:43:45
most of the SIG are not provenpackagers and cannot bypass ACLs
<@decathorpe:fedora.im>
17:44:05
the difference would've been a few days at most
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:44:21
we wanted to have things fixed before tomorrows mass build..
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:44:21
Since we're discussing process, another thing: if you're voting, and it's past the one-week or two-week boundary, then immediately set the vote tally and `pending-announcement` label. This allows people who are waiting for the vote result to proceed without waiting for chair to get around to the ticket.
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:44:48
being spammed with FTBFS errors is not fun :(
<@conan_kudo:matrix.org>
17:45:08
or worse, FTI issues
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:45:12
And especially for FastTrack. There the result can be set if there were 7 votes.
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:46:24
OK, if nothing else, let's wrap this wrap.
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:46:30
See y'all next week, traffic permitting.
<@zbyszek:fedora.im>
17:46:43
!endmeeting