Deprecating intents in Modularity

[Petr Pisar]

Hello module maintainers,

do you know intents
<https://github.com/fedora-modularity/libmodulemd/blob/8f7543f712c4aeb8afd...
I believe you don't. Do you use intents? I hope you don't.

In modularity, default streams and default profiles can be parametrized by
a system role (purpose, variant, spin). Modularity calls it an "intent".

Theoretically, if you install Fedora Workstation and then install a postgresql
module, client libraries or tools for PostgreSQL could be installed. While
installing the same module on a Server spin would instead install PostgreSQL
server.

I write theoretically because Fedora has no way of signalling the intent
(fedora-release-* packages do not drop any configuration files; on RHEL one
uses subscription-manager for that purpose) and DNF does not implement
handling the intents at all.

I did a small survey and I was told that:

* DNF is not interrested in implementing this feature because there is no
established distribution-agnostic mechanism for setting and getting the
intents (even Fedora and RHEL differ).

* I was also told that Anaconda, a distribution installer, only interfaces
with intents through subscription-manager (RHEL-only thing) and that the
interface is clumsy.

* I was told that even RHEL, from version 9, does not use system purposes and
that it's quite possible that the interface will disappear from
subscription-manager.

* I also confirmed that module defaults in Fedora repositories do not utilize
the intents.

Summing all these facts suggests that intents in Modularity are completely
unused and their future won't be better. Therefore I'd like to deprecate
intents in Modularity.

What would it mean? The current YAML specification for module-defaults would
warn that intents are deprecated. Any future tools or speciciations for
modularity would not implement the intents.

Does anybody have a problem with deprecating intents?

-- Petr

[Petr Šabata]

On Wed, Nov 2, 2022 at 5:04 PM Petr Pisar <ppisar(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  Summing all these facts suggests that intents in Modularity are
> completely
>  unused and their future won't be better. Therefore I'd like to deprecate
>  intents in Modularity.
>
>  What would it mean? The current YAML specification for module-defaults would
>  warn that intents are deprecated. Any future tools or speciciations for
>  modularity would not implement the intents.
>
>  Does anybody have a problem with deprecating intents? 
No, +1. As you note, this never became a thing and no one was really
interested in it.

P

[Matthew Miller]

On Wed, Nov 02, 2022 at 04:45:41PM +0100, Petr Pisar wrote:
>  Hello module maintainers,
>  
>  do you know intents
>
> <https://github.com/fedora-modularity/libmodulemd/blob/8f7543f712c4aeb8afd...
>  I believe you don't. Do you use intents? I hope you don't.
>  
>  In modularity, default streams and default profiles can be parametrized by
>  a system role (purpose, variant, spin). Modularity calls it an "intent".
>  
>  Theoretically, if you install Fedora Workstation and then install a postgresql
>  module, client libraries or tools for PostgreSQL could be installed. While
>  installing the same module on a Server spin would instead install PostgreSQL
>  server. 
Or, for example, if we had a "personal productivity apps" module, and you
had KDE Plasma installed, you'd get a KDE-flavored set of these apps, while
if you had GNOME Shell you'd get gtk ones. :)


That said... obviously we didn't get there. So I am fine with dropping this
feature.


-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader

[Kevin Kofler]

Matthew Miller wrote:
>  Or, for example, if we had a "personal productivity apps"
> module, and you
>  had KDE Plasma installed, you'd get a KDE-flavored set of these apps,
>  while if you had GNOME Shell you'd get gtk ones. :) 
Indeed, intents sounds like something we would want in more places, not 
fewer ones. (I am thinking of comps in particular.) But of course, if, as 
seems to be the status quo, it only theoretically works for modules, does 
not really work even for modules in practice, and is not actually used by 
modules, then it does not make sense.

        Kevin Kofler

[Petr Pisar]

V Wed, Nov 02, 2022 at 04:45:41PM +0100, Petr Pisar napsal(a):
>  do you know intents
>
> <https://github.com/fedora-modularity/libmodulemd/blob/8f7543f712c4aeb8afd...
[...]
>  
>  * I was told that even RHEL, from version 9, does not use system purposes and
>  that it's quite possible that the interface will disappear from
>  subscription-manager.
>   
A correction: A subscription experience product manager replied after sending
my original message that "System Purpose isn’t going away [... it] is used by
the subscriptions service [...] to show the user their usage." In other words,
system purposes will be kept in subscription-manger for statistical purposes.

>  Summing all these facts suggests that intents in Modularity are
> completely
>  unused and their future won't be better. Therefore I'd like to deprecate
>  intents in Modularity.
>  
>  What would it mean? The current YAML specification for module-defaults would
>  warn that intents are deprecated. Any future tools or speciciations for
>  modularity would not implement the intents.
>  
>  Does anybody have a problem with deprecating intents?
>   
Thanks for your replies. I did not receive any negative feedback. Therefore
I deprecated intents in modulemd-defaults-v1 specification and in
libmodulemd API
<https://github.com/fedora-modularity/libmodulemd/commit/af23bff3fd51319ee...;.

-- Petr