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* Proposal owners:
* Proposal owners:
<!-- What work do the feature owners have to accomplish to complete the feature in time for release?  Is it a large change affecting many parts of the distribution or is it a very isolated change? What are those changes?-->
<!-- What work do the feature owners have to accomplish to complete the feature in time for release?  Is it a large change affecting many parts of the distribution or is it a very isolated change? What are those changes?-->
** Update the gettext package in all Fedora branches including rawhide to add <code>Provides: gettext-tools</code> for forward compatibility [done for rawhide]
** Update the Rawhide gettext package to have the new gettext-runtime subpackage (which is pulled in by the gettext base package)([https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/gettext/pull-request/15 PR])
** File bugs against packages that require gettext-tools or gettext-devel at runtime and hence need to be updated to depend on it.
** File bugs against packages that could only need gettext-runtime at runtime.
** Before the Mass Rebuild:
*** In Rawhide dist-git change all packages with <code>BuildRequires: gettext</code> to <code>BuildRequires: gettext-tools</code> (this affects about 1100+ Fedora source packages)
*** Update the Rawhide gettext package to have the new gettext-tools subpackage, which pulls in the gettext base package ([https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/gettext/pull-request/15 PR])
** Before branching, complete updating any remaining <code>Requires: gettext</code> in packages, which require gexttext-tools at runtime and weren't updated in time by their package maintainers.


* Other developers: <!-- REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM WIDE CHANGES -->
* Other developers: <!-- REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM WIDE CHANGES -->
<!-- What work do other developers have to accomplish to complete the feature in time for release?  Is it a large change affecting many parts of the distribution or is it a very isolated change? What are those changes?-->
<!-- What work do other developers have to accomplish to complete the feature in time for release?  Is it a large change affecting many parts of the distribution or is it a very isolated change? What are those changes?-->
** Packagers who own packages that have a direct runtime dependency on gettext (estimated to be not more than 30 packages) and actually need gettext-tools have to change their <code>Requires: gettext</code> to the new <code>gettext-tools</code> subpackage in Rawhide (roughly around 10 Fedora packages). (This should be a safe change even if they really only actually require <code>gettext</code>.)
** Packagers who own packages that have a direct runtime dependency on gettext (estimated to be not more than 30 packages) and actually only needs gettext-runtime can change their <code>Requires: gettext</code> to the new <code>gettext-runtime</code> subpackage in Rawhide (estimated around 10 Fedora packages).


* Release engineering:  <!-- REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM WIDE CHANGES -->
* Release engineering:  <!-- REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM WIDE CHANGES -->
<!-- Does this feature require coordination with release engineering (e.g. changes to installer image generation or update package delivery)?  Is a mass rebuild required?  include a link to the releng issue.
<!-- Does this feature require coordination with release engineering (e.g. changes to installer image generation or update package delivery)?  Is a mass rebuild required?  include a link to the releng issue.
The issue is required to be filed prior to feature submission, to ensure that someone is on board to do any process development work and testing and that all changes make it into the pipeline; a bullet point in a change is not sufficient communication -->
The issue is required to be filed prior to feature submission, to ensure that someone is on board to do any process development work and testing and that all changes make it into the pipeline; a bullet point in a change is not sufficient communication -->
** Just need to confirm that all BuildRequires changes have landed in dist-git ahead of the mass rebuild.
** todo: link to ticket


* Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change) <!-- REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM WIDE CHANGES -->
* Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change) <!-- REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM WIDE CHANGES -->

Revision as of 12:34, 7 June 2022


Gettext Runtime Subpackage

Summary

Subpackage gettext's runtime programs in a smaller runtime subpackage, reducing the default install footprint.

Owner

Current status

  • Targeted release: Fedora Linux 37
  • Last updated: 2022-06-07
  • FESCo issue:
  • Tracker bug:
  • Release notes tracker:

Detailed Description

Gettext is one of the core packages. Its installed on-disk size is about ~6.1 MB. A large number of packages directly or indirectly depend on it. Extracting "runtime" from main gettext package into a separate sub-package would reduce the footprint by about ~4.7 MB on most normal installations.

After the split this should look like: 

gettext-runtime subpackage
-----------------------
compressed size: 172 kB
uncompressed size: 749.6 kB

gettext package
------------------------
compressed size: 1.0 MB
uncompressed size: 4.7 MB

As gettext-runtime depends on gettext-libs:

gettext-libs subpackage
-----------------------
compressed size: 322K
uncompressed size: 933.7 kB

Grouping of binaries: 

gettext-runtime:
envsubst gettext gettext.sh ngettext

gettext:
msgattrib msgcat msgcmp msgcomm msgconv msgen msgexec msgfilter msgfmt msggrep msginit msgmerge msgunfmt msguniq recode-sr-latin xgettext

Feedback

  • initial devel thread floating subpackaging idea (April 2022)

Benefit to Fedora

Space saving of about ~4.7 MB for typical installations.

Scope

  • Proposal owners:
    • Update the Rawhide gettext package to have the new gettext-runtime subpackage (which is pulled in by the gettext base package)(PR)
    • File bugs against packages that could only need gettext-runtime at runtime.
  • Other developers:
    • Packagers who own packages that have a direct runtime dependency on gettext (estimated to be not more than 30 packages) and actually only needs gettext-runtime can change their Requires: gettext to the new gettext-runtime subpackage in Rawhide (estimated around 10 Fedora packages).
  • Release engineering:
    • todo: link to ticket
  • Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)
  • Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)
  • Alignment with Objectives:

Upgrade/compatibility impact

On update both packages will get installed on systems having gettext. (preinstalled)


How To Test


User Experience

User will see a new lighter gettext-runtime package and a gettext package.
Many of the desktop/web apps/libraries continue using gettext. This subpackaging is also the recommended packaging by upstream and corresponds to Debian's gettext-base and gettext packages.

Dependencies

Packages which explicitly have a dependency on gettext need to check if they need programs provided by gettext-runtime, and if so they may update their dependency to "gettext-runtime" from gettext.

Perhaps about ~26 packages require gettext and ~1115 packages have build dependency.
Furthermore, gettext has a dependency to gettext-runtime.

Contingency Plan

  • Contingency mechanism: (What to do? Who will do it?) Change owners will revert the relevant packages updated.
    • (Provides: gettext-tools could be put back in the base package if necessary to simplify the reverting)
  • Contingency deadline: Beta freeze
  • Blocks release? No

Documentation

https://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gettext.git;a=blob;f=PACKAGING


Release Notes

A gettext-runtime package has been added to gettext to separate out the gettext translation utilities that are not commonly used at runtime.

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