Fedora Workstation Working Group Meeting 2025-07-01 (Gemini Summary)

Meeting Jul 1, 2025 at 08:55 CDT

Summary

Jef Spaleta raised concerns about the future of 32-bit support and 
whether Fedora might fall under new European legislation regarding 
CVEs, while also questioning the current effectiveness of Fedora's 
marketing strategy and potential for innovation. Matthias Clasen and 
Allan Day discussed the perception of the Workstation edition as stale 
and lacking a distinct identity, with Allan Day also noting the slow 
adoption of Flatpaks and stalled system integration efforts. Additional 
updates include Matthias Clasen's announcement of gdk-pixbuf upstream 
releases and Jens-Ulrik Petersen's report on the bustle package 
rewrite, alongside ongoing printing issues with the Papers display 
server reported by Michael Catanzaro.

Details

32-bit Support Concerns

Jef Spaleta raised concerns about the future of 32-bit support, 
particularly with the approaching year 2038 deadline. They highlighted 
the challenge of maintaining these libraries and addressing potential 
CVEs, especially with evolving legislation in Europe. While Michael 
Catanzaro suggested the impact on gamers might be benign and that 
essential components could be provided, Jef Spaleta emphasized 
uncertainty about Valve's exact needs and the long-term viability of 
relying on Ubuntu's 32-bit libraries.

Fedora's Role and CVE Handling

Jef Spaleta expressed concern about whether the Fedora project might 
fall under the scope of new European legislation regarding CVEs. 
Michael Catanzaro noted that currently, Fedora package maintainers, 
including the GNOME desktop team, do not actively track Red Hat's 
security tracker bugs unless specifically notified. Tomáš Popela 
mentioned that tracking and addressing CVEs has become a duty of the 
packager on duty, and they reported having no outstanding trackers.

Fedora Deliverables and Marketing

Jef Spaleta acknowledged a push towards making bootc-based deliverables 
a top-tier Fedora offering. They questioned the current effectiveness 
of the "editions" model in Fedora's marketing and suggested a need to 
discuss the top-level marketing strategy, especially with the 
possibility of immutable defaults. Jef Spaleta emphasized that relying 
on a single deliverable could hinder innovation.

Workstation Edition and Innovation

Matthias Clasen expressed a feeling within the Workstation Working 
Group that the edition might be perceived as stale due to the long 
tenure of contributors and a lack of significant new initiatives, 
citing Silverblue as an example that didn't fully materialize. Allan 
Day echoed this, noting that the Workstation edition lacks a distinct 
identity and community feel compared to other more community-driven 
editions. Jef Spaleta suggested that a degree of risk-taking and 
potential "reputation damage" might be necessary to foster more 
innovation.

Challenges with Flatpaks and System Integration

Allan Day mentioned the slower-than-desired adoption of Flatpaks as a 
key part of the original Silverblue vision. They also noted that 
efforts around systemd integration and overall system improvements had 
stalled. Tomáš Popela stated that Flatpak support is progressing, 
though perhaps slower than initially anticipated.

gdx-pixbuf and Bustle Package

Updates Matthias Clasen announced that upstream releases of gdk-pixbu 
using Glycin are now available and should soon appear in rawhide, 
advising users to watch for potential image loading issues. Jens-Ulrik 
Petersen reported that the Bustle package has been rewritten to use a 
Rust codebase with help from Fabio.

Papers and Printing Issues

Matthias Clasen mentioned progress on accessibility for Papers, the 
replacement for the Wayland compositor events. However, Michael 
Catanzaro reported ongoing severe issues with printing documents using 
Papers, specifically when printing multiple copies. Despite 
accessibility improvements in Papers and issues also affecting events, 
the printing problems remain a significant concern.


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