If there's one thing you can always count on in the Linux world it's that packaging can be a nightmare. The OBS Studio team are not happy with the Fedora folks due to Flatpak problems and threatened legal action.
Like with traditional distribution packages (RPM, DEB, etc), distros can also run their own Flatpak repositories, instead of using Flathub. This is what Fedora does by default, they have their own Fedora Flatpaks, where they often repackage various software. To note: the OBS Studio on Flathub, is an official OBS package.
A few weeks ago Joel Bethke of the OBS Studio team put up an issue on the Fedora Flatpaks GitLab titled "Broken OBS Studio Flatpak presented as official package" that said:
The unofficial OBS Studio Flatpak on Fedora Flatpaks is, seemingly, poorly packaged and broken, leading to users complaining upstream thinking they are being served the official package. There are several examples of this being the case outside of OBS Studio as well, and many users who are unhappy with Fedora Flatpaks being pushed with no or unclear options to opt-out.
- https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/-/issues/2754
- https://pagure.io/fedora-workstation/issue/463
We would like to request that this package is either removed, or made clear that it is a third party package. It should not be upstream's responsibility to ensure downstream packages are working, especially when they overwrite official packages.
I would also like some sort of explanation on why someone thought it was a good idea to take a Flatpak that was working perfectly fine, break it, and publish it at a higher priority to our official builds. We spend an enormous amount of effort on our official Flatpak published to Flathub to ensure everything is working as well as it can be.
Thanks in advance.
This led to a issue being filed on Fedora Workstation titled "Deprioritize or remove Fedora Flatpaks, and prioritize Flathub in GNOME Software". The issue noted receiving complaints from upstream developers, like the OBS Studio team. With lots of discussion going on about changing the order of how Fedora presents packages between Fedora Flatpaks, Flathub and RPMs. Inside the comments, there's a fair bit of disagreement between Fedora / Red Hat and the OBS Studio team.
Then on the 12th of February, Bethke escalated things with a reply on the original ticket:
Since it's clear that Fedora does not have any interest in a rational discussion at this point, and has decided to resort to name-calling, we are now considering the Fedora Flatpaks distribution of OBS Studio a hostile fork.
This is a formal request to remove all of our branding, including but not limited to, our name, our logo, any additional IP belonging to the OBS Project, from your distribution.
Failure to comply may result in further legal action taken. We expect a response within the next 7 business days (By Friday, February 21st, 2025).
Thank you.
Since then the Fedora team have updated their Flatpak of OBS Studio to an "end of life" status, and eventually it looks like it will be removed, so things seem to be moving into a direction that should appease the OBS Studio team.
A messy situation but hopefully one some lessons can be learned from.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Blanket policy would require them to hunt down every violation(or lose the trademark protection completely based genericide).
What they've chosen to do instead is to hunt down every violation that causes big enough problems.
The closest example I can name of the top of my head about any open source project to blanket policy trademark enforcement policy is mozilla.
Which is why Debian has Iceweasle instead of Firefox
Last edited by LoudTechie on 15 Feb 2025 at 4:43 pm UTC
Caldathras 4 days ago
Which is why Debian has Iceweasle instead of FirefoxExcept this hasn't been a thing for a while. According to Wikipedia, Debian and Mozilla are supposed to have settled their issues some time back in 2017.
There was a project called GNU Iceweasel -- it's called GNU Icecat now -- but it's apparently not related to the Debian project. Still a fork of Firefox, just like the Debian project, however.
Last edited by Caldathras on 15 Feb 2025 at 5:55 pm UTC
It started as phoenix in 2002 -> mozilla-firebird -> mozilla-firefox -> firefox, changed to iceweasel in 2006 and back again with firefox/firefox-esr 45 in 2016.
Today, firefox resides solely in sid, iceweasel is long gone and firefox-esr is available for all suites.
First phoenix. I think the name was chosen because it was a light and fast rebirth of Netscape Navigator. The name had to be discontinued because the phoenix BIOS had the name protected for an in-BIOS browser.
Then came Firebird/Thunderbird – keeping phoenix/bird of fire theme for the browser. It seems that Firebird SQL was the issue that time. So the bird had to become a fox.
Metallinatus a day ago
Even so, a blanket policy would be better. Either allow it, or don't.But they do want to allow forks to keep the branding, but they reserve the rights deny the use of the brand by forks they consider hostile. They also didn't pull the legal threat out of nowhere, they tried diplomacy first and clearly, it didn't work.
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