Hello i3wm SIG & Fedora community,
I'm reaching out to the SIG about the future of the Fedora i3 Spin as we work through the Fedora Linux 45 release cycle.
As some of you know, I was involved with the i3 SIG as a maintainer in its earlier days, and I care a lot about the work this community has built together. But I want to be honest about where things stand: active maintenance of the Spin has been light in recent release cycles. We need to determine if there are people ready to carry this forward, or if it's time to make a graceful exit.
*## What needs to happen*
The Fedora i3 Spin needs active maintainers to keep shipping. That maintenance work includes:
- *fedora-comps*: Keeping the i3 package group up to date with the right set of default and optional packages for each release. - *Bug reports & feature requests*: Triaging and responding to issues from the community. - *Package Integration*: Improving the integration between i3wm and Fedora Linux base packages in the official RPM repositories. - *Documentation*: The i3 SIG docs site on Pagure must be migrated or archived before the Pagure.io shutdown deadline of 31 July 2026.
*## What's possible*
This doesn't have to be the end of the road. There are exciting directions we could take:
- *Fedora i3 Atomic Desktop*: The Sway SIG has an interesting model here. They ship both a traditional RPM-based Spin and a Fedora Atomic Desktop variant. There's no reason we couldn't do the same for i3, and it could renew interest in the i3 Spin. - *Sway as a sister project*: i3 and Sway share a lot of DNA. Closer collaboration with the Sway SIG could benefit both communities, especially around shared documentation and onboarding. - *Fresh energy*: Sometimes all a project needs is one or two people with enthusiasm and a bit of time. If that's you, we want to hear from you.
*## The timeline*
We need a clear picture by the *end of July 2026*. That gives us enough time before the Fedora 45 release cycle ramps up to do one of the following:
1. Confirm we have enough maintainers to keep shipping the Spin, or 2. Make a responsible decision to retire it, providing users with proper notice.
If we don't hear from enough folks willing to step up, I'll work with Aoife Moloney, the Fedora Operations Architect, to begin retiring the Fedora i3 Spin for F45. I'd rather see new folks rally and keep it going, but I'd also rather make a clean, honest decision than let the Spin ship without anyone intently looking after it.
*## How to get involved*
If you're interested in helping maintain the Fedora i3 Spin, please reply to this thread. You can also find us at:
- *Mailing list*: i3wm@lists.fedoraproject.org (*you are here!*) - *Matrix*: #i3:fedoraproject.org https://matrix.to/#/#i3:fedoraproject.org - *Fedora Discussion*: *#f45 https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/tags/c/project/7/f45/1452* tag
Thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Fedora i3 Spin over the years.
-
Justin Wheeler