My $0.02: Fedora should not get involved in this. We should recommend laptops that are compatible with open source software instead.

Thanks all.

Completely agree that this should not be packaged with Fedora - pretty sure that's not possible actually. It's a shame that there is a closed source binary involved but unfortunately it's not something that we have a choice on. We have to implement a lock on the modem to meet FCC legal requirements and there's no alternative we've found (despite much discussion). The laptop is compatible with open source software otherwise - it's just the WWAN modem that needs this piece to be enabled to work with the kernel and modem-manager where support has been added.

We did look at flatpak - but it's not the right solution for something like this (confirmed with developers who are smarter than us).

I was thinking maybe RPMfusion would be the answer - the same way it's used for delivering the closed-source Nvidia GPU and MIPI camera software. I know it's not the solution any of us want but at least it makes WWAN more easily available to Fedora users.

If that doesn't work, we are distributing the app on the Lenovo site (the link vbenes posted above will be for Fedora too - we just haven't finished testing there and there are some SElinux issues to resolve). Having it on the Lenovo site does mean hunting it down to install it which doesn't seem ideal.

Mark

Deferred until next week, as there was no corum today as most people are flying to GUADEC http://guadec.org the GNOME Developers and Users Conference or is hanging around in Riga this week

We discussed it at the working group meeting today, and our basic opinion that there is no particular advantage to having it hosted on rpmfusion rather than hosted by Lenovo.

There's basically two levels of user experience:

• The user has to find documentation and install the package manually
• We have the package available in a default 3rd-party repository, and there is some sort of hooks that result in the user being suggested to install it.

The latter sounds not particularly feasiible at the moment - it would require spent significant effort to create a general framework. But either approach would be equally doable whether the package lives is hosted by Lenovo or in a purpose-specific repository on rpmfusion.

(Ideally, hosting on Lenovo would be a repository, rather than just a bare package, so that there's the possibility of updates via dnf.)

Thanks for the update.

Next time would it be possible to get an invite so I can join in the conversation directly please? I feel like I'm missing some points. I have a couple of concerns - but they may be due to lack of knowledge on my part:

• rpmfusion is already there and easily findable by Fedora users. I'm assuming that search/finding/installing from there is easier vs looking for a less standard Lenovo repository where they have to hunt down and find out where it's located etc. Isn't that what rpmfusion is largely for? The description on their page says 'RPM Fusion provides software that the Fedora Project or Red Hat doesn't want to ship' - which is exactly what this case is right?

• I also have concerns as to where we would host the repository. If it's in 'Lenovo space' it means a whole bunch of battles with IT etc to get that done, and all the logistics of maintaining a whole repository for what will be a single package. I may have misunderstood things here though so please correct me if I'm wrong.

If rpmfusion doesn't make sense that's fine - but I'm still missing what is bad about using it and why it's not suitable. Would someone mind giving me the idiots guide as to why it won't work?
As a note on the 'require spent significant effort to create a general framework' - I'm not sure what this is referencing. Obviously we would look at doing the packaging work for making the unlock tool available and would need some review support for that. Apart from that, Is there some other work item that I'm missing that was discussed?

Thanks!
Mark

Next time would it be possible to get an invite so I can join in the conversation directly please?

Are you available at next week's meeting time (Tuesday at 10 AM EDT)? I could add this to the schedule.

Absolutely (I need to reschedule something, but that's not a problem). I'll put it on my calendar
Thanks!
Mark

OK, I'll add it to the agenda.

• The user has to find documentation and install the package manually
• We have the package available in a default 3rd-party repository, and there is some sort of hooks that result in the user being suggested to install it.

You can add to RPM Fusion whatever the RPM Fusion developers are willing to accept. So if you're fine with solving only the first problem, that might be an OK place for it. Fedora won't endorse that, though. It sounds like that's all you're concerned about here, so it would suffice?

Solving the second problem would be much more complicated.

Ah - penny dropped here :)
Understood on Fedora not endorsing a closed piece of software - makes complete sense and I agree/support that (wish we didn't need it ...but we do).
I had missed that you were looking and discussing something more integrated - and agreed that is out of scope with Fedora's rules. I wouldn't ask for this to be included by default in the Fedora image.

However...(as it was discussed) - would the workstation team be OK to discuss these kind of issues more generally and any guidelines, recommendations or thoughts as to how to handle them? I'd be interested in having your perspectives.

I'm looking ahead and I have concerns about how with MIPI, WWAN and Nividia (though there is light at the end of the tunnel for Nvidia) that our Fedora offering is going to be limited. I'd love to just bounce any ideas around with experts on any ways forward that would at least make things acceptable with Fedora. If there is anything we can (or should?) do.

I don't mean to hijack this issue - so if it's not appropriate let me know and I'll happily just crawl back under my rock :)

Mark

I think this is appropriate for us to discuss. It's going to keep coming up as we wind up dealing with more OEM partnerships.

We discussed this at today's meeting and came to no grand conclusions. Lenovo might need to create a "Lenovo add-on" repository somewhere, whether it be hosted by Lenovo, or perhaps by RPM Fusion, or perhaps someplace else. We all agree these extra components (1) cannot be part of Fedora itself, (2) can be part of fedora-workstation-repositories.

Closing since I don't think we have anything more to discuss here. Workstation WG doesn't have a strong opinion on where third-party software should be hosted.