Finally!! I thought they'd never update this but I guess they had to do it now. Talk about last second :)

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Great work! Not only an Appimage but an automated process. Really nice application and now more users (en Bazzite users) can use it :)

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That's the whole point: Every Linux distribution (especially the Ubuntu forks) are basically redundant - they do all the same work. Except, each distribution has some value for their users & everybody is ok with this. Why would you handle Flatpak repos (which is just another package manager) any different?

You really like that "Why would you handle flatpak differently" statement. Of course flatpaks are different from deb, rpm and other distro packages. Flatpak was created as a distro agnostic way to package applications, so that developers wouldn't need to package in 10 different formats to release on Linux, similar in mission to snaps and appimage. I thought this was common knowledge? But I digress, I can see you are very set in your support of Fedora flatpaks (even though you admit yourself to never using it) and multiple flatpak repos. But unless Flathub really mess up or another repo offers something of value I see no reason to use anything other than Flathub. If a developer only can or want to support one format in one place, I hope it's flatpak on Flathub.

They haven't fixed Windows in over 20 years, so I really doubt they'll fix Linux.

I really don't know how to answer that statement but I feel that's a discussion for another time.

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@pleasereadthemanual

They can, and they likely should, but Fedora can't offer users Flatpaks from Flathub because they would be legally liable for patent infringement; for the same reason they can't offer most RPM Fusion repositories by default.

Seems like there are ways around this. Either by filtering out patented apps or by promting the user to accept responsibility and then add Flathub to Gnome Software/KDE Discover?

@poiuz

No, they maintain the same deb repos over and over again. Flatpak is just another package manager. Why would you handle deb packages any different.

Exaxtly, it has nothing to do with Flatpak (the package manager) but the broken application (OBS). The same issue exists for the RPM package & most likely on Arch Linux & other rolling releases. Again: Flatpak is just another package manager. Why would you handle it any different?

Again, Flatpak is just another package manager. Thus we're are back at the beginning: Ubuntu & its derivates can use Debian packages (they're even based on the same sources). Why would you handle Flatpak any different.

Because it's redundant? Why maintain an ecosystem that already exists in Flathub? If every distro maintains their own flatpak repo we have made the situation more complex and even less enticing for app developers than before Flatpak/Flathub existed. Linux Torvalds once said that if anyone is going to fix the Linux desktop it would be Valve. If Flathub doesn't manage to be *the* Linux app store then it's up to Steam.

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Great idea. And now you can go to Ubuntu / Linux Mint / any other Ubuntu fork & tell them to stop developing their systems, because they can simply use & work with Debian.

I don't really know of any other distro that maintains their own flatpak repo. Anyway I don't really see any benefit to having Debian flatpaks, Mint Flatpaks and 10 other distro flatpak repos. It would be 3 steps backs for app devs and users alike.

The RPM package was broken, too because OBS is broken with newer Qt versions. Other distributions (e.g. Arch Linux) should be affected, too.

OBS can't use the latest QT because of a regression. That's why they didn't update their official packages and instead waited for a fix. Fedora updated their flatpak anyway and thus broke the application. Users got pissed at OBS. OBS told Fedora to please stop breaking their app while using a 'Verified' marker to make it seem official. Fedora then told OBS "You can't tell us what to do! It's open-source and we can distribute however we like." OBS responded with "OK but you can't call it OBS then." Fedora realizes they don't want to maintain an actual fork and removes their broken flatpak.

This situation should never have gotten this far and really shows a lack of communication between OBS and Fedora.

Because they want to provide their applications in their atomic systems. That's reason enough. Flatpak is their secondary package manager & obviously their systems will install any additional software from their source, the same way their RPM systems install from their RPM repository.

Can't they use Flathub flatpaks on their atomic systems? Most users of atomic systems probably add Flathub anyway.

I'm using both Fedora variants (Workstation & Silverblue) and don't care much about Fedora's Flatpaks (I've completely removed from my system).

Me to. This is the problem. Who is Fedora Flatpak for?

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@Calinou

One of the original reasons for creating Fedora Flatpaks was legal and FOSS compliance reasons. Red Hat was afraid to give users full access to Flathub, as it ships lots of proprietary applications but also lots of applications that support patent-encumbered formats like H.264. Red Hat is very careful about not packaging those in the main Fedora distribution, so giving access to Flathub by default would have been seen as a way to endorse those packages (even if Fedora themselves did not package it).

I don't use Gnome but I thought there was a toggle in Gnome Software to filter out proprietary software? I'm pretty sure KDE Discover has one. If there isn't then it can't be that much work to implement them and have Fedora enable those by default. Same with patent formats like H.264. Add a toggle and have Fedora enable it by default, let users decide if they want to change it. No reason to build and maintain a total separate repo.

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It's good that management of the respective projects could de-escalate the situation and talk it out. I still think that long term Fedora needs a better story to why Fedora Flatpaks are needed at all. So the issue really isn't; "how do we make it clear to the user what is Flathub and what is Fedora Flatpak?". Rather the issue is "Why do we need Fedora Flatpak?".

This is not the first incident with Fedora Flatpak shipping broken applications, the Bottles situation a while back comes to mind. If Fedora have a problem with security on Flathub, like Matt's been saying, why not work with Flathub rather than putting resources into Fedora Flatpaks? I firmly believe that users and developers alike would prefer to have Flathub be the main place to download flatpaks. To me this is the sort of duplicate work and "not invetened here mentality" that drains resources the Linux community don't have.

Edit: I hope I didn't come of as too negative. I'm a Fedora user myself and really appreciate the hard work the community put in. I'm not however a user of Fedora Flatpak and don't see the benefit in even having it over Flathub.

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I sympathies with OBS on this one. It must be really tiring getting all this negative feedback from users having problems with a package they have no control over. Really just let the projects that have the resources handle their packages themselves.

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Stellaris is an fantastic game that I keep coming back to from time to time. It's great to see that it' still supported after all these years. I have not had any performance issues other than very large battles. Those can really stress your CPU xD

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Isn't desktop Discord client essentially a glorified Electron application running in embedded Chromium engine? So you could just use it in Firefox and screen sharing on Wayland worked fine.

Isn't all this hate on Electron getting a bit old? I'm sure screen sharing a desktop to show a presentation or what not works just fine. But have you tried sharing game play with sound using Firefox? It is not a pleasant experience for the viewers and really isn't suited for this use case, at least currently.

I have tried so many different solutions this past year and they have all been lacking in one way or another. Some was cumbersome, like having two clients running (one for the user and one for the game). Others worked for a time but broke after an update. Every solution either had issues with frame rate being to low or sound not working properly. None of that matters though now since we have a working solution.

The TLDR is that currently Discord is the best solution for streaming game play to friends. It's reliable (on my system), it's easy and it's performant (enough). I don't particularly like Discord and I'm a little bit worried that we get dependent on one proprietary solution. But it's what we currently have and at least it's finally working on Linux.

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