Interest in additional packages

[Jan Staněk]

Hi all,
I currently have several custom packages that I use in my sway setup.
Would there be any interest to bring them into Fedora properly,
ideally co-maintained by this SIG
and possibly part of the module "extras"?

The packages in question are the following:

- bemenu (~ dmenu)
- imv (~ feh)
- kitty (terminal emulator with wayland support)
- redshift fork with wlroots support
- wl-clipboard (~ xclip)

They currently live (among others) in my personal COPR repo [1].
Usually, the current master branch is packaged as a git snapshot,
since the upstream releases are not really up-to-date (tens of commits
behind, with some noticeable improvements not released yet).
If there will be an interest, I will try to convince relevant upstreams
to make more up-to date release, so we do not have to deal with
arbitrary git snapshots.

Have a nice summer!

[1] https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/jstanek/ports

[Dan Čermák]

Jan Staněk  writes:
> Hi all,
> I currently have several custom packages that I use in my sway setup.
> Would there be any interest to bring them into Fedora properly,
> ideally co-maintained by this SIG
> and possibly part of the module "extras"?

Definitely! I've been lacking these packages to be able to fully migrate
away from i3.
> The packages in question are the following:
> bemenu (~ dmenu)
> imv (~ feh)
> kitty (terminal emulator with wayland support)
> redshift fork with wlroots support
> wl-clipboard (~ xclip)
>
> They currently live (among others) in my personal COPR repo [1].
> Usually, the current master branch is packaged as a git snapshot,
> since the upstream releases are not really up-to-date (tens of commits
> behind, with some noticeable improvements not released yet).
> If there will be an interest, I will try to convince relevant upstreams
> to make more up-to date release, so we do not have to deal with
> arbitrary git snapshots.
>
> Have a nice summer!
> [1] https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/jstanek/ports
>
> Jan Staněk
> Associate Software Engineer
> Red Hat EMEA
> [e-mail]     IM: jstanek
>
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[Jan Staněk]

Ok, so there is an interest :)

I went trough the relevant GitHubs and pondered if anything else should
be done before proceeding; I would appreciate some comments on what to
do next:

bemenu: I submitted (and got accepted) man pages for the binaries.
From the discussion [1] it seems that the author does not yet consider
it release-ready. Are we happy with packaging arbitrary pre-release
commits? Note that a single 0.1.0 release exists, but the current master
has additional fixes applied.

redshift: This already exists in Fedora, but without wlroots support.
There is open PR [2] to get the support in upstream, but the maintainer
seems to not respond at this time. Should I wait for it to get merged,
submit the single commit as a patch to existing Fedora package,
or just package the fork as alternative/conflicting package?

wl-clipboard: Lo and behold, there is already a Fedora package [3] for
it, but it only has builds for rawhide for some reason. Here we should
perhaps reach to the maintainer and coordinate for possible inclusion to
sway module. As a side note, IIRC the packaged snapshot have some issues
(using deprecated wayland protocols or something like that),
so an update to newer snapshot might be in order.

[1]: https://github.com/Cloudef/bemenu/issues/16
[2]: https://github.com/jonls/redshift/pull/704
[3]: https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/wl-clipboard

[Jeff Peeler]

Disclaimer - I am not of any authority on this...

On Thu, Aug 8, 2019 at 5:38 AM Jan Staněk  wrote:
> I went trough the relevant GitHubs and pondered if anything else should
> be done before proceeding; I would appreciate some comments on what to
> do next:
>
> bemenu: I submitted (and got accepted) man pages for the binaries.
> From the discussion [1] it seems that the author does not yet consider
> it release-ready. Are we happy with packaging arbitrary pre-release
> commits? Note that a single 0.1.0 release exists, but the current master
> has additional fixes applied.

Packaging pre-released software is perfectly acceptable from what I've
seen, there are also guidelines for packaging git snapshots. The
severity of the fixes (and perhaps the complexity) in master would
influence the decision as to whether or not patches should be applied
to the 0.1.0 fedora package. Obviously, it is preferential to not have
to patch, so it depends on how many patches would be necessary to
carry vs the unideal packaging of a git snapshot.
> redshift: This already exists in Fedora, but without wlroots support.
> There is open PR [2] to get the support in upstream, but the maintainer
> seems to not respond at this time. Should I wait for it to get merged,
> submit the single commit as a patch to existing Fedora package,
> or just package the fork as alternative/conflicting package?

I'd say looking at the patch that it'd probably be easy to maintain on
top of future releases (if there are any), so in this case adding the
patch is okay. The patch is upstreamed as far as it can be without
being merged. I've seen that Arch packaged the fork
https://github.com/minus7/redshift, which is mostly (it is slightly
different) the same referenced patch applied.
> wl-clipboard: Lo and behold, there is already a Fedora package [3] for
> it, but it only has builds for rawhide for some reason. Here we should
> perhaps reach to the maintainer and coordinate for possible inclusion to
> sway module. As a side note, IIRC the packaged snapshot have some issues
> (using deprecated wayland protocols or something like that),
> so an update to newer snapshot might be in order.

Maybe we can just shout "release early, release often" haha. It seems
that Drew DeVault also wants a fresh release cut [4]. If wl-clipboard
is currently working with the packaged version of wlroots, it might be
best to wager a new upstream release will be made before a new wlroots
release comes through that breaks it.
>

[4] https://github.com/bugaevc/wl-clipboard/issues/35#issuecomment-513587372

[Jan Staněk]

So after some helpful comments (thanks Jeff!),
I have prepared something:

1. bemenu is ready for review [1]. The latest master snapshot is
packaged, and it is not expected to be updated until next proper release
is made by upstream. Looking for reviewer!

2. PR for redshift is also prepared [2]. Any testers willing to leave a
positive feedback will be appreciated :)

The other packages may have to wait on my end, as my work backlog got
fuller over my vacations ;) Hoewer, anyone is welcome to take look at
the packages in my COPR [3] and use them to make proper Fedora ones.

Have a nice summer!

[1]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1743689
[2]: https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/redshift/pull-request/3
[3]: https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/jstanek/ports/