Re: Fedora Workstation Working Group Meeting 2025-09-30

Here is our Gemini-assisted meeting summary:

Summary

Matthias Clasen reported on a proposed GNOME test day for image loading 
and gdk-pixbuf issues, with Felipe Borges agreeing that next week would 
be ideal. Matthias Clasen also provided a follow-up on the OpenH264 
geofencing issue, pointing to an existing infrastructure issue. The 
team reviewed blocker bugs, with Matthias Clasen noting only three 
outstanding issues, including a JPEG saving complication in gdk-pixbuf 
and RDP dropdown menu problems. Allan Day and Neal Gompa (Conan Kudo) 
discussed updating appstream metadata, with Michael Catanzaro 
highlighting the need for new tooling. Neal Gompa (Conan Kudo) also 
reminded the team to prepare for upcoming release marketing, and 
Matthias Clasen suggested dedicating the next meeting to collecting 
release notes and marketing materials.

Details

Meeting Administration

Michael Catanzaro suggested adding a reminder to the agenda to click 
the Gemini button for note-taking, or to take turns clicking it. 
Matthias Clasen supported adding this reminder to the agenda. Matthias 
Clasen also mentioned that Tomas, Michel, and Jens sent their regrets 
for the meeting.

GNOME Test Day

Matthias Clasen reported that a GNOME test day was proposed, and an 
issue was filed, but the QA team is understaffed, requiring the 
community to take the initiative to organize it themselves. Allan Day 
inquired if specific changes needed testing, and Matthias Clasen 
suggested that image loading issues due to glycin and gdk-pixbuf 
changes would benefit from a test day. Michael Catanzaro noted a 
comment from a disappointed application developer regarding a JPEG 
saving issue in gdk-pixbuf. While a specific date was missed, Matthias 
Clasen stated that if anyone felt strongly about it, a test day could 
still be scrambled together for the following week before the final 
freeze. Felipe Borges agreed that next week would be the best time to 
schedule a test day given the timeline.

OpenH264 Geofencing Issue

Matthias Clasen provided a follow-up on the OpenH264 geofencing issue, 
stating that they had pinged Jeff Spaleta, who pointed to an existing 
infrastructure issue covering the same ideas and suggestions discussed 
in the previous meeting.

Blocker Bugs Review

Matthias Clasen initiated a review of blocker bugs as the final freeze 
approached, noting that the list looked good with only three 
outstanding bugs. They discussed a JPEG saving complication in 
gdk-pixbuf, which was rejected as a blocker because no concrete 
application was mentioned as affected, though Michael Catanzaro noted 
that gdk_pixbuf_new_from_file() could create a pixbuf with an alpha 
channel that then could not be saved as a JPEG. Another accepted 
blocker bug concerned RDP and dropdown menus not working, particularly 
in Anaconda, which Matthias Clasen planned to follow up on with Jonas 
and Carlos.

Appstream Metadata Updates

Allan Day brought up an issue regarding updating appstream metadata, 
which historically Richard had handled due to their tooling. Neal Gompa 
(Conan Kudo) confirmed that Richard still owned the package and 
appstream-glib repo, suggesting that Richard should be pinged. Michael 
Catanzaro highlighted that the existing tooling is obsolete and 
incompatible with GNOME's upstream appdata validation, requiring a 
complete replacement. Neal Gompa (Conan Kudo) detailed the challenges 
of updating the `appstream-generator` to its new C++-based 
implementation, testing it for RPMs, and finding an environment with 
enough space to download the entire Fedora repository to generate and 
upload the data. They confirmed that the entire repository needs to be 
downloaded at once for the current tooling to work efficiently. Michael 
Catanzaro emphasized the need for more frequent updates (daily/weekly) 
and better communication with application developers when their app 
fails validation. Matthias Clasen acknowledged that this sounds like a 
mid-size project and suggested revisiting it next cycle.

Upcoming Release Preparations

Neal Gompa (Conan Kudo) reminded everyone to start preparing for 
marketing blurbs and release materials, as there were only three weeks 
left until finalization. Matthias Clasen suggested dedicating the 
following week's meeting to a focused collection of input and materials 
for release notes, marketing, and the Fedora release party.

Felipe Borges mentioned that the systemd activation work might be worth 
verifying, particularly the SPICE agent for virtual machines. Neal 
Gompa (Conan Kudo) advised that developers relying on XDG autostart 
should remove the GNOME-specific X-GNOME activation phase stanza and 
rely on the systemd generator instead, as the GNOME-specific stanza 
inhibits the built-in systemd XDG autostart functionality.

Matthias Clasen shared positive news that someone is actively working 
on enabling GNOME to run on OpenRC-based systems, ensuring 
compatibility beyond systemd.

Suggested next steps

 - Matthias Clasen will ping Richard about the issue of updating 
appstream metadata.
 - Neal Gompa (Conan Kudo) will upgrade appstream-generator and start 
testing it, then make sure it produces valid metadata for Fedora.


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