00:25:50 <brainycmurf> #startmeeting Workstation WG (2025-02-24)
00:25:50 <zodbot> Meeting started Wed Feb 26 00:25:50 2025 UTC.
00:25:50 <zodbot> This meeting is logged and archived in a public location.
00:25:50 <zodbot> The chair is brainycmurf. Information about MeetBot at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Zodbot#Meeting_Functions.
00:25:50 <zodbot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic.
00:25:50 <zodbot> The meeting name has been set to 'workstation_wg_(2025-02-24)'
00:25:50 <brainycmurf> #meetingname workstation
00:25:50 <zodbot> The meeting name has been set to 'workstation'
00:25:50 <brainycmurf> #chair Matthias
00:25:50 <zodbot> Current chairs: Matthias brainycmurf
00:25:50 <brainycmurf> #info Present members: Matthias, Michael, Allan, Jens, Tomas, Chris, Neal
00:25:50 <brainycmurf> #info Guests: Felipe, Steve Cossette, Tomas Pelka, Yaakov
00:25:50 <brainycmurf> #info Regrets: Michel
00:26:02 <brainycmurf> Neal says it would be useful to have somebody working on GNOME updates in the Working Group.
00:26:04 <brainycmurf> #agreed Nieves is welcome to join
00:26:06 <brainycmurf> #topic F42 background
00:26:08 <brainycmurf> Allan has been talking to Madeline
00:26:10 <brainycmurf> New wallpaper uses a pastel/pastoral style. Some users like this and some do not.
00:26:12 <brainycmurf> #link https://gitlab.com/fedora/design/team/release-artwork/default-wallpaper/-/issues/21
00:26:16 <brainycmurf> #topic Workstation topics at Flock
00:26:18 <brainycmurf> Call for papers is ending soon
00:26:20 <brainycmurf> #link https://cfp.fedoraproject.org/flock-to-fedora-2025/cfp
00:26:22 <brainycmurf> cschaller - generic workstation
00:26:24 <brainycmurf> vera+lukas - accessibility
00:26:26 <brainycmurf> Felipe has proposed a talk on Fedora Flatpaks
00:26:28 <brainycmurf> cfp is still open this week
00:26:30 <brainycmurf> #topic Deprioritize Fedora Flatpaks: Followup from last week: Any concrete changes?
00:26:32 <brainycmurf> #link https://pagure.io/fedora-workstation/issue/463
00:26:34 <brainycmurf> Proposal by Michael: Disable the Fedora flatpak repository by default
00:26:36 <brainycmurf> Michael fears serious conflict with GNOME unless we change Flatpak strategy. We can try again in the future with a new Flatpak repo that contains fewer apps. Packaging every application is no longer required since upstream developers can now reach users directly.
00:26:40 <brainycmurf> Michael expects Matthew Miller and Yaakov will be opposed. Neal mentions he is also opposed.
00:26:42 <brainycmurf> Matthias proposes making software source configuration in GNOME Software more flexible.
00:26:46 <brainycmurf> Allan disagrees. Reordering sources doesn't solve any problems. Apps with bugs will still be buggy. Matthias mentions apps will be buggy regardless of which source they come from. Allan says fine-grained prioritization UI is too complex for users to understand; prefers to ask a simpler question to determine the user's preferences.
00:26:50 <brainycmurf> Tomas asks Michael if proposal applies to Workstation or Silverblue. Michael says it's for Workstation, but we need to talk about Silverblue since it would have no applications available if adopted. Michael wants to enable Flathub by default in Silverblue. Tomas strongly disagrees. Neal also disagrees.
00:26:54 <brainycmurf> Neal says we are a distro community; telling people to stop packaging apps is not going to work.
00:26:56 <brainycmurf> Yaakov says upstreams will complain no matter what; if we remove Fedora Flatpaks, they'll just complain about RPMs. There's nothing wrong with Fedora Flatpaks that we cannot fix (except codecs).
00:26:59 <brainycmurf> Yaakov suggests software source priorities should be configurable. Objects to removing Fedora Flatpaks from default sources. Preferring RPMs over Fedora Flatpaks seems like a step backwards, but would essentially "mask" Fedora Flatpaks since there is an RPM for every Flatpak (possible compromise).
00:27:03 <brainycmurf> Allan: prefers Fedora Flatpaks to be a limited set of apps, e.g. preinstalled apps. Expanding the scope was asking for trouble. Having one true source for where to get apps is a better user experience. Adding UI to allow reordering sources is a workaround for having too many software sources; solution is to reduce number of sources. Continuing to compete with Flathub will cause more problems for Fedora going forward.
00:27:08 <brainycmurf> Yaakov reminds us that almost all of the arguments against Fedora Flatpaks apply equally to Fedora RPMs.
00:27:11 <brainycmurf> Matthias appreciates Yaakov's work to improve Fedora Flatpaks, but is concerned that there are not more developers working on this. Matthias also believes Flatpaks are better than RPMs, would not vote for a proposal to prefer RPMs.
00:27:17 <brainycmurf> Steve: it's hard to choose between a Flathub Flatpak and a Fedora Flatpak. Can we have a UI to ask which should be used?
00:27:20 <brainycmurf> Michael: we could do something like that in GNOME Software.
00:27:22 <brainycmurf> Felipe: we are ignoring the big issues - Flatpak designed to resolve Linux fragmentation. It doesn't have to be an upstream/downstream conflict. We want universal apps. Fedora doesn't have to take ownership of every package. The system is 80% of packages. Duplication of work is counter-productive.
00:27:26 <brainycmurf> Christian: we are moving to immutable OSs, so Flatpaks and other containers are the future rather than RPMs. Doesn't think it's the WG's job to tell people what they should package. However, we should have stronger policies - for example a policy for if the upstream doesn't want us to package them. Another policy: the person packaging the RPM needs to also own the Flatpak. There are cases where we want our own
00:27:31 <brainycmurf> Flatpak: eg. Firefox. If we discourage people from making Flatpaks in Fedora then that would be a bad outcome.
00:27:34 <brainycmurf> #topic Announcements, follow-ups, status reports
00:27:36 <brainycmurf> #info Anaconda web UI is happening for F42 - we should test it
00:27:38 <brainycmurf> #topic Open Floor
00:27:40 <brainycmurf> #topic Minutes from previous meeting
00:27:42 <brainycmurf> #link https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting-2/2025-02-19/workstation.2025-02-19-02.50.log.html
00:27:47 <brainycmurf> #endmeeting