Fedora 38 To Get Rid Of Its Flathub Filtering, Allowing Many More Apps On Fedora

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Fedora 38 To Get Rid Of Its Flathub Filtering, Allowing Many More Apps On Fedora

The Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee recently signed off on the proposed "Unfiltered Flathub" feature that makes it easier to enjoy the full collection of software offered by Flatpak's Flathub service...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Fedora-38-Unfiltered-Flathub

[user1]

What was the point of Flathub filtering in the first place? I mean Fedora provides other proprietary software repositories like Steam Chrome and Nvidia drivers anyway. I love Fedora, but some of their decisions are incomprehensible. Like also not providing Openh264 codec ootb.

[Mershl]

What was the point of Flathub filtering in the first place? I mean Fedora provides other proprietary software repositories like Steam Chrome and Nvidia drivers anyway. I love Fedora, but some of their decisions are incomprehensible. Like also not providing Openh264 codec ootb.

The examples you mentioned are not provided by Fedora. Those proprietary packages are provided by a separate repository called RPMfusion. Fedora itself does not include non-free software by default -> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/

[user1]

The examples you mentioned are not provided by Fedora. Those proprietary packages are provided by a separate repository called RPMfusion. Fedora itself does not include non-free software by default -> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/

I know, but both RPMFusion and filtered Flathub are under the same category of repositories in Fedora that is simply called "third party repositories" which is disabled by default. So that doesn't answer my question about the need of filtering.

[RahulSundaram]

I know, but both RPMFusion and filtered Flathub are under the same category of repositories in Fedora that is simply called "third party repositories" which is disabled by default. So that doesn't answer my question about the need of filtering.

RPMFusion on the whole isn't offered by Fedora itself. Only very specific packages from RPMFusion, so it wasn't different from a filtered Flathub. The filtering was done to match the requirements of the Fedora third party repo policy which was approved by Fedora legal. Apparently, from a legal perspective, Flathub managed by a non profit entity that isn't specific to Fedora is legally considered to be a different to RPMFusion and they have now approved dropping the filter.

[uid313]

As long as I can disable this, because I do not want to see any proprietary software.

[avis]

If flatpaks are properly isolated from the system, why not? Otherwise it's kinda scary.

From the man page:

Flatpak is a tool for managing applications and the runtimes they use. In the Flatpak model, applications can be built and distributed independently from the host system they are used on, and they are isolated from the host system ('sandboxed') to some degree, at runtime.

This doesn't inspire confidence.

[skeevy420]

As long as I can disable this, because I do not want to see any proprietary software.

I'm the opposite. I want to see proprietary software and would rather they place it in the sandbox over the house.

I dream for the day that companies can skip the middle-man and release paid-for software directly to consumers on Flathub, Snap, etc since one of the reason software costs so much is that app stores take a 30% cut of the revenue. Steam, Google, Apple, Epic, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo -- they're all guilty of that obscene App Store Tax. If there was a method to release software at a lower price due to there not being a ridiculously high transaction tax then that's better for the consumer and company. Some middle-man operating a glorified rsync GUI with chat room technology shouldn't get an unnecessarily high cut of the profits.

So, yeah, I'd like to see more proprietary software on Linux app stores. I'd even like them to implement a way to buy and sell software in an altruistic manner.

[user1]

If flatpaks are properly isolated from the system, why not? Otherwise it's kinda scary.

From the man page:

Flatpak is a tool for managing applications and the runtimes they use. In the Flatpak model, applications can be built and distributed independently from the host system they are used on, and they are isolated from the host system ('sandboxed') to some degree, at runtime.

This doesn't inspire confidence.

Yeah, Flatpak permissions is definitely something that needs to be improved. It's kinda ironic when some people mention the fact that you get the software directly from the developer as one of the key points of Flatpak. But I think the average developer is less likely to be knowledgeable about Flatpak permissions than a packager from the Flathub community, so he will more likely set arbitrary permissions for his app when it's not necessarily needed.
I heard the complete migration to portals will solve this issue, but that doesn't seem to happen in the near future.

[ChristianSchaller]

What was the point of Flathub filtering in the first place? I mean Fedora provides other proprietary software repositories like Steam Chrome and Nvidia drivers anyway. I love Fedora, but some of their decisions are incomprehensible. Like also not providing Openh264 codec ootb.

OpenH264 is only covered by Ciscos patent license if downloaded by the end user directly from them, so that is why Fedora is not including it by default.