[suggestion] Seek FSF endorsement for Flathub repository about flathub

[TingPing]

Flathub currently gives users easy access to proprietary software. As our guideline says we ensure that these applications are correctly marked as such but I believe that still makes it something they would not endorse.

[Calinou]

I think it's fair to assume that Flathub isn't going to be FSF-endorsed by now. Setting up an independent repository would be a lot of work for little benefit (and could likely end up confusing beginners). Therefore, this issue should be closed.

[cosimoc]

We did discuss using a separate repository vs. relying on metadata information provided by the repository for the use case of a free software-only GNOME Software, and decided to go with the latter for now.

Adding @alexlarsson and @hughsie here, since I'm not sure if such configuration is already possible in GNOME Software.

[TingPing]

@cosimoc In donf gnome-software has show-nonfree-software

[adityashah1212]

I think having two separate repos, like rpmfusion, would help a lot. Plus I believe this should allow distros with stricter rules about non-free software to package flathub with the distro release rather than having to install flathub separately. But I guess this is more of an enhancement than a requirement.

[alexlarsson]

Splitting the repo is complicated for some things. For instance auto-installing things like the nvidia drivers, these will currently only happen if the origin is the same as the runtime.

[lofidevops]

@alexlarsson Is that for the following case:

libre-utility
* Depends on: libre-library
* Optionally depends on: proprietary-nvidia-library

One solution might be to create two packages:

libre-utility (lives on flathub-libre)
* Depends on: libre-library (lives on flathub-libre)

libre-utility-with-nvidia (lives on flathub-proprietary)
* Depends on: libre-library (lives on flathub-proprietary)
* Depends on: proprietary-nvidia-library (lives on flathub-proprietary)

I think it's fairly important to split the repository (into libre and non-libre). Flathub is growing more popular in the libre software community; many programs (especially related to the GNOME project) use and recommend it to distribute new releases. This may lead people to add a number of non-libre packages to their Flatpak package manager, in addition to the libre one they originally wanted, which should be prevented and avoided.

Marking packages as proprietary helps, for sure, (and thank you for presenting that information), but it should be taken a step further, so that such software does not have to be presented to the users who primarily just want to install libre packages from Flathub, and doesn't become directly installable without the explicit addition of a special repository.

[TingPing]

it should be taken a step further, so that such software does not have to be presented to the users who primarily just want to install libre packages from Flathub,

That can be filtered at the client side, GNOME-Software has an option to hide non-free software for example.

[afranke]

GNOME-Software has an option to hide non-free software for example.

Even when that’s set to hide non-free software I still see non-free software (e.g. Slack and Spotify). Is it really supposed to work?

[TingPing]

Is it really supposed to work?

Looks like it wasn't... GNOME/gnome-software@c3007f0