Hi, I'm seeking feedback from FESCo on what to do with the Remove webkit2gtk-4.0 API version change proposal. The proposal has basically failed because @pwalter created a compatibility package webkit2gtk4.0, so although it has been "implemented" by removing the webkit2gtk-4.0 API version from the webkitgtk source package, in practice, webkit2gtk-4.0 is still around and Fedora applications can continue to use it. I was surprised to learn about this a couple days ago.
Note that Pete did not exactly do anything wrong here, because I said this was OK to do this (although I had cautioned against it).
I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for here. I guess the two options are:
Certainly the status quo does not make sense, as it would be weird to read about the package being removed in the release notes if it's in fact still present.
I'd like to know how long Pete plans to maintain this compat package. Abandoned applications will likely not port to webkit2gtk-4.1 until the compat package is removed. It would be unfortunate for this to wind up like glib1 or gtk1 where the outdated dependency remains in the distro for 25 years, which is likely if there is no flag date.
Reminder: the problem with webkit2tgk-4.0 is that it depends on libsoup 2, which is no longer maintained. libsoup 2 is basically the GNOME version of libcurl, so it's a high-risk dependency (example previous vulnerability). Ideally we would remove libsoup 2 and all applications that depend on it from the distro, but FESCo previously rejected this so I gave up on that. I was expecting that applications that depend on both libsoup 2 and WebKitGTK would be removed, though.
Metadata Update from @jistone: - Issue tagged with: meeting
My proposal: minimally update the Change text to describe status quo, but otherwise keep the Change listed.
E.g. the Summary says:
The webkit2gtk-4.0 API version will no longer be built. Packages that depend on it will fail to build from source and eventually be retired.
This could be changed to:
The webkit2gtk-4.0 API version will no longer be built from the main webkitgtk source package. Packages that depend still require that version of webkit2gtk can be built using the compat package (webkit2gtk4.0).
The work in Scope listed for Change Owners is done, and the list of packages depending on that old version has gone down a lot. "Packages required by Fedora Workstation and ELN no longer depend on webkit2gtk-4.0" — this is also true. So I think it's fine to say that the main part of this change is done.
We discussed this in the 2024-01-22 meeting, and approved (+7, 0, -0) the proposal above to update the Change text. https://meetbot-raw.fedoraproject.org//meeting_matrix_fedoraproject-org/2024-01-22/fesco.2024-01-22-19.30.log.txt
Metadata Update from @jistone: - Issue untagged with: meeting
OK, I will implement this.
Metadata Update from @catanzaro: - Issue close_status updated to: Accepted - Issue status updated to: Closed (was: Open)
I've been struggling to come up with reasonable wording to explain what's going on here. So instead, I've decided to just withdraw the change proposal. It's no longer necessary.
This also works. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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