Changes/UnfilteredFlathub

Unfiltered Flathub

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

The flatpak remote for Flathub will have no filtering, making all the Flathub content available in GNOME Software and via the flatpak commandline.

Owner

• Name: Workstation WG

• Email: mclasen@redhat.com

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora Linux 37
• Last updated: 2022-06-28
• FESCo issue: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
• Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
• Release notes tracker: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>

Detailed Description

Fedora includes a flatpak repo definition for Flathub in the fedora-flathub-remote package. So far, this remote was filtered by an allowlist that only made a limited subset of software from Flathub available. We've been told that it is ok for us to remove the filtering and make all of Flathub available.

The filtering mechanism itself will still be there, and it will be possible for us to reinstate a filter via a package update, should the need arise in the future.

The Flathub remote is available to users who opt-in to enabling third-party software repositories in either GNOME Initial Setup or GNOME Software. Users who do not opt in will not see anything from Flathub.

Feedback

This change proposal has previously been discussed here: https://pagure.io/fedora-workstation/issue/300

Benefit to Fedora

More software will be easily available to Fedora users.

Scope

• Proposal owners:

- Remove the allowlist in /usr/share/flatpak/fedora-flathub.filter, or replace it with one that allows everything

• Other developers:

- No work needed

• Release engineering: #Releng issue number

- No work needed

• Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)
• Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)
• Alignment with Objectives:

User Experience

When opening GNOME Software, all the applications that are available on Flathub will show up in search results.

Contingency Plan

• Contingency mechanism: Reinstate the filtering we had in Fedora 36

• Contingency deadline: Beta

• Blocks release? No

Documentation

N/A (not a System Wide Change)