Is package (gnome-shell extension) split into legacy and current required?

[Alexander Ploumistos]

Hello,

I maintain the gnome-shell extension for bubblemail. I was informed by
the upstream developer that in order to support GNOME ≥ 45, he is
rewriting most of the code. What is currently the master branch will
support (recent) GNOME versions up to 44.x and there will be another
branch for 45 and newer.
Do I need to create something like a compat package or can I just
switch to the new source/branch from F39 onward? I suppose that a
bugfix for F37 and F38 down the road is not out of the question, so
there will be two different upstream branches for different Fedora
versions.

Best regards,
A.

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 12:02:05PM +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I maintain the gnome-shell extension for bubblemail. I was informed by
> the upstream developer that in order to support GNOME ≥ 45, he is
> rewriting most of the code. What is currently the master branch will
> support (recent) GNOME versions up to 44.x and there will be another
> branch for 45 and newer.

I assume you mean you maintain the Fedora package? Or are you maintainer
of the extension and asking what you should do upstream?
> Do I need to create something like a compat package or can I just
> switch to the new source/branch from F39 onward? I suppose that a
> bugfix for F37 and F38 down the road is not out of the question, so
> there will be two different upstream branches for different Fedora
> versions.

You should target the gnome version in each release, no need for compat
packages. That assumes versions on the package(s) are such that users
can upgrade going from one release to the next.

kevin

[Alexander Ploumistos]

Hi Kevin,

On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 7:51 PM Kevin Fenzi  wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 12:02:05PM +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I maintain the gnome-shell extension for bubblemail. I was informed by
> > the upstream developer that in order to support GNOME ≥ 45, he is
> > rewriting most of the code. What is currently the master branch will
> > support (recent) GNOME versions up to 44.x and there will be another
> > branch for 45 and newer.
>
> I assume you mean you maintain the Fedora package? Or are you maintainer
> of the extension and asking what you should do upstream?

Sorry I wasn't clear, I am the package maintainer. Upstream is
extremely cooperative, if something would cause trouble downstream,
they'd be willing to accommodate us.
> > Do I need to create something like a compat package or can I just
> > switch to the new source/branch from F39 onward? I suppose that a
> > bugfix for F37 and F38 down the road is not out of the question, so
> > there will be two different upstream branches for different Fedora
> > versions.
>
> You should target the gnome version in each release, no need for compat
> packages. That assumes versions on the package(s) are such that users
> can upgrade going from one release to the next.

Yes, that will be the case. Upstream uses semantic versioning (well,
most of the time) and the upgrade path will be straightforward since
each branch will be on a different major number.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Best regards,
A.

[Michel Lind]

Hi,

On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 12:02:05PM +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I maintain the gnome-shell extension for bubblemail. I was informed by
> the upstream developer that in order to support GNOME ≥ 45, he is
> rewriting most of the code. What is currently the master branch will
> support (recent) GNOME versions up to 44.x and there will be another
> branch for 45 and newer.
> Do I need to create something like a compat package or can I just
> switch to the new source/branch from F39 onward? I suppose that a
> bugfix for F37 and F38 down the road is not out of the question, so
> there will be two different upstream branches for different Fedora
> versions.

I maintain Argos, where there's also a PR I'm shipping in Fedora >= 39
because it drops support for older GNOME releases.

Since Fedora only introduces major GNOME versions in new releases, I
think it's safe to use the same dist-git repo and just let the spec
diverges.

Assuming the fixes in the branch that supports legacy GNOME are few and
far between, you can probably do something similar to this:

https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/gnome-shell-extension-argos/c/fed457b5b1a...

(in this case, some patches are conditionally applied only to releases
with GNOME >= 45, but you can also do it the other way around)

HTH,

[Alexander Ploumistos]

Hi Michel,

Thank you very much, that was very educational, I've bookmarked and
tagged that commit.

Best regards,
A.

[Milan Crha]

On Mon, 2023-10-16 at 16:15 -0500, Michel Lind wrote:
> (in this case, some patches are conditionally applied only to
> releases with GNOME >= 45, but you can also do it the other way
> around)

Hi,
as far as I can tell, those checks are obsolete now and you can safely
assume the GNOME is always 45 and higher version in the rawhide branch.
The thing is that the fXY branches are used for fXY Fedoras, thus in
the f39 branch you always target GNOME 45, in the f38 branch you always
target GNOME 44, in the rawhide branch you always target "some future"
GNOME. You should not build your extension for f38/f39 from the rawhide
branch (once the sources are branched for that Fedora version).
    Bye,
    Milan