Changes/GettextRuntimeSubpackage

Gettext Runtime Subpackage

This is a proposed Change for Fedora Linux.
This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.

Summary

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

Owner

• Name: Sundeep ANAND, Jens Petersen
• Email: suanand@redhat.com, petersen@redhat.com

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora Linux 37
• Last updated: 2022-06-24
• devel thread
• FESCo issue: #2818
• Tracker bug: <will be assigned by Wrangler>
• Release notes tracker: <will be assigned by Wrangler>

Detailed Description

Gettext is one of the core packages. Its installed on-disk size is about ~6.1 MB. Extracting runtime utilities from main gettext package into a separate sub-package will reduce the default system 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:
  • Add Provides: gettext-runtime to gettext [done in rawhide]
  • Update the gettext package in rawhide to have the new gettext-runtime subpackage, pulled in by the gettext base package (PR)
  • File bugs against packages that could be changed to only need gettext-runtime at runtime.
  • Subpackage envsubst as a mini-subpackage of gettext-runtime (bz)

• Other developers:
  • Packagers who own packages that have a direct runtime dependency on gettext (roughly 30 packages) and that actually only need gettext-runtime can change their Requires: gettext to the new gettext-runtime subpackage in Rawhide.

• Release engineering: #10836

• 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

Impact should be low: on upgrade both packages will get installed on systems that had gettext installed.

How To Test

• Preview test package is available from: https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/suanand/gettext-runtime

• Test upgrades from F36 to F37
• Test minimal/default installs continue to work as expected
• Packages that depend on gettext continue to rebuild, install, and function normally

User Experience

User will see a new lighter gettext-runtime package and a gettext package.
This subpackage separation also corresponds to the recommended packaging by upstream and Debian's gettext-base and gettext packages.

Dependencies

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

Only about 33 Fedora packages currently require gettext (whereas almost 1200 packages have a buildtime dependency):

NsCDE backup-manager blivet-gui byobu debootstrap deepin-gettext-tools ecryptfs-utils fontconfig gambas3 gnome-books gnome-common grub2 ibus ibus-chewing kf5-ki18n libpst libvirt lokalize mate-common osmo photocollage playonlinux po-debconf po4a poedit redhat-lsb rpminspect sensible-utils sugar-toolkit-gtk3 translate-toolkit vdr vim-syntastic yast2-devtools

Contingency Plan

• Contingency mechanism: (What to do? Who will do it?) Package owners to revert relevant packages.
• 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 subpackage has been added to gettext to separate out the programs needed at runtime, reducing the default install footprint.