[07:16] <mmikowski> arraybolt3: I successfully update the firmware. I won't bore you with details, but if you need them, just let me know and I'll send my notes along.;
[13:52] <BluesKaj> Hi all
[14:14] <ahoneybun[m]> heyo sitter
[14:14] <sitter[m]> helo
[14:15] <sitter[m]> https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-flavor-packaging-defaults/34061 who from us discussed this? I haven't seen it raised on the mailing list
[14:16] <ahoneybun[m]> I believe Rik and I talked about it. I believe it was mainly talked about in #kubuntu-council.
[14:18] <sitter[m]> has it been raised with upstream? cause this seems to degrade the UX of discover quite a bit
[14:20] <ahoneybun[m]> I don't believe so, I'm not sure what options were available in this. It should be removing the plugin for Discover, what happens with it now?
[14:23] <sitter[m]> this all seems a bit shady to be honest. "the Ubuntu flavors have made a joint decision" makes it sound like we went 👍️ but then it wasn't really raised on the mailing list nor taken upstream (if anything so we can work on a software-side plan). I'm feeling a bit jump scared over here
[14:27] <RikMills> sitter[m]: I never agreed to it from my side. I have no intention of implementing it via any action I can do either, because as you say it is degrades user experience
[14:28] <RikMills> if canonical want to enforce it, they are going to have to step in and use their 'higher powers'
[14:28] <ahoneybun[m]> It was not a good time for this to come in either. I'll be honest I signed it as I don't know if there was a real option to not sign off on it.
[14:29] <Fallen> I had initially briefly emailed Rik on this topic and we had some light discussion, then it was handed over to Aaron. Aaron signed off on the announcement, which I do take as authoritative. We've had multiple emails on this topic including Rik and Aaron. If this wasn't agreed on I'm a bit frustrated as well, as I specifically wanted to have agreement before we post this.
[14:30] <Fallen> I've also reached out to Aaron personally offering a discussion and have always framed this as such.
[14:31] <ahoneybun[m]> That is true but I didn't know how much we could really change as it kinda felt like we didn't have an option but to sign it to be honest.
[14:32] <Fallen> Well, that is something we could have talked about? Is there anything specifically I said that made it seem like I'm imposing this?
[14:32] <RikMills> ahoneybun[m]: yes, it was presented as a 'fait de complis'
[14:32] <ahoneybun[m]> There isn't anything that you yourself have said that made it feel like it but it seemed to come from higher up so it wasn't an option.
[14:41] <Fallen> I've been trying to have conversations about this for weeks, and certainly the short time at the end of the flavor sync doesn't allow me to portray the full picture. If that made it come across too concise and final I apologise. I'd like to have a constructive conversation about this though. Is there a way we could talk about this in a video meeting?
[14:45] <ahoneybun[m]> valorie DarinMiller Mamarok Rick can we get a time to talk as the KC?
 @Rick_Timmis ∆
[15:02] <Fallen> I'd also like to better understand how it degrades the UX. With flatpak installed and no repositories configured, doesn't that mean there are no additional packages in discover until the user configures them?
[15:02] <Fallen> s/them/the repositories/
[15:19] <ahoneybun[m]> I haven't tested with it removed personally so I'm not sure what it would change even more so for someone who doesn't have flatpaks installed.
[15:24] <Fallen> Is this something you or someone else could try out?
[15:24] <Fallen> (in a vm is fine of course)
[15:53] <ahoneybun[m]> I have a VM of 22.04 and I'll remove those packages to see what happens.
[15:55] <ahoneybun[m]> Mm I'll need to do a VM of 22.10 then as it's not in 22.04.
[15:56] <Fallen> Flatpak? My understanding is that it has been in there since 18.04
[15:56] <Fallen> sorry 20.04
[15:56] <ahoneybun[m]> When I ran flatpak it said command no found and gave me the apt command to install it.
[15:57] <Fallen> Ah ok. Well then let's see about 22.10 then
[15:59] <ahoneybun[m]> It doesn't look like my updates removed it either.
[15:59] <ahoneybun[m]> Well that's more odd since KDE Neon is based on 22.04...
[16:02] <ahoneybun[m]> It's not in the manifest either: https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/22.04.1/release/kubuntu-22.04.1-desktop-amd64.manifest
[16:06] <ahoneybun[m]> Rik Mills am I just missing something?
[16:18] <ahoneybun[m]> So it is there in 22.10.
[16:20] <tsimonq2> To be clear, I don't think it would be compliant with SRU policy to drop this in existing stable releases. Unless an exception is made, of course (quite frankly, it wouldn't make sense).
[16:20] <tsimonq2> I do think we should only be concerned about Lunar on this one. And, Feature Freeze is tomorrow.
[16:21] <Fallen> For the avoidance of any doubt, I've not made any changes on our end that would affect this, nor do I feel we should change prior releases.
[16:23] <ahoneybun[m]> It sounded like it would remove flatpak if it isn't being used on currently installed releases. It's not an issue if this is only changing in 23.04 to folks on older releases.
[16:23] <Eickmeyer[m]> Seeing as how Neon isn't an official flavor and does their spinning separately, this shouldn't affect them one iota.
[16:24] <ahoneybun[m]> I mean they could just update their desktop page to add flatpak if they need to though I haven't seen much packages from Kubuntu used.
[16:25] <Eickmeyer[m]> They don't use anything outside the 22.04 repos.
[16:25] <Eickmeyer[m]> And then they have their own repos additionally.
[16:30] <Fallen> "It sounded like it would remove flatpak if it isn't being used on currently installed releases." -- I'll add this to the FAQ. Indeed this is not about older releases, the sign-off and agreement was for removing it from the default seed for 23.04. 
[16:33] <ahoneybun[m]> It looks like 22.10 Discover works just fine without flatpak based on my limited testing.
[16:33] <Eickmeyer[m]> ahoneybun: We've been installing Discover on Studio without flatpak the entire time.
[16:33] <arraybolt3> I'm pretty sure that Discover just doesn't show Flatpaks if you don't have Flatpak installed.
[16:33] <arraybolt3> Eickmeyer[m] ahoneybun[m]: Same in Lubuntu here.
[16:34] <ahoneybun[m]> Well Fallen wanted me to test it just to see.
[16:34] <ahoneybun[m]> Yea I think it will be just fine, what does an upgrade from 22.10 to 23.04 without flatpak in the seed do though.
[16:35] <Eickmeyer[m]> WIthout the recommends, it would get autoremoved if the user so chooses.
[16:35] <arraybolt3> (If anyone's curious, I just wrote a supprting statement for the no-Flatpak-by-default announcement on Discourse from the perspective of development and technical support, sitter[m] this might help clear things up. https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-flavor-packaging-defaults/34061/9?u=arraybolt3)
[16:36] <Fallen> Really appreciate your comment arraybolt3!
[16:38] <ahoneybun[m]> It did seem to help at least one person (so far).
[16:38] <Fallen> Top of this MR is what will happen during upgrade. In short, if Flatpak is in use, it will be marked as a manual install: https://code.launchpad.net/~enr0n/ubuntu-release-upgrader/+git/ubuntu-release-upgrader/+merge/437680
[16:39] <Fallen> This prevents the autoremove that Eickmeyer mentioned
[16:43] <Fallen> So, if the user experience doesn't change, are there any other specific concerns about this change that I can help alleviate?
[16:47] <arraybolt3> Fallen: Perhaps it would make the community happy if an official "how to enable Flatpak on Ubuntu" post was made along with a disclaimer about why those aren't supported by the community? Perhaps for the documentation section? I recently wrote a post in Lubuntu's Discourse Documentation section that does that. https://discourse.lubuntu.me/t/using-flatpaks-on-lubuntu/4021
[16:48] <ahoneybun[m]> I know Xubuntu made a blog post about it themselves.
[16:49] <ahoneybun[m]> Oh wait that was Sean from Xubuntu on his personal blog.
[16:49] <ahoneybun[m]> https://blog.bluesabre.org/2023/02/22/enable-flatpak-in-xubuntu/
[16:56] <sitter[m]> I'm curious what is going to be done about backroom dealings in the future more than anything. cause in the end canonical can do whatever. talking to random people behind the scenes and then going "yo here's a story and everyone agreed to it" seems. ehm. wrong?
[16:56] <Eickmeyer[m]> sitter[m]: That's not what happened at all. That document was created in collaboration with the flavor leads, myself included.
[16:57] <sitter[m]> well, kubuntu sure didn't
[16:57] <arraybolt3[m]> sitter[m]: Also the "random people" who were talked to were the flavor leads. Kubuntu's flavor lead included.
[16:57] <arraybolt3[m]> And Eickmeyer. And myself (who does some Kubuntu stuff).
[16:57] <sitter[m]> and that makes it ok to exclude the community?
[16:57] <arraybolt3[m]> And I think ahoneybun was there too.
[16:58] <sitter[m]> and also let's not delude ourselves here. this announcement is totally not technically motivated because flatpak isn't the only piece of tech that does random gibbledy goop downloads. it's not even the only such thing inside discover
[16:58] <arraybolt3[m]> sitter[m]: You really might read the comment I made. You'll never know how it actually does have a technical use if you don't read what the technical use is. :)
[16:58] <sitter[m]> I read your comment
[16:59] <arraybolt3[m]> Ah, OK.
[17:01] <sitter[m]> and if I may switch my hat to my KDE hat for a moment. I am beyond livid about this not even getting remotely discussed with any of the upstream stakeholders
[17:01] <arraybolt3[m]> sitter[m]: If by "the community" you mean the development and technical support community, the Flavor Sync Meeting was made open to all and was announced in multiple locations. Those who weren't in those locations probably didn't know about it. If you mean the Ubuntu user community, the number of "Canonical must die!!!!111!!11!" people out there would have made that extremely unpleasant for users and devs alike.
[17:03] <sitter[m]> arraybolt3[m]: I mean ~kubuntu-members and ~kubuntu-dev
[17:03] <arraybolt3[m]> From a developer standpoint, it might seem a bit weird. But spend weeks and weeks on IRC doing tech support and it makes sense. I've seen some upset users who didn't understand that installing random apps from random places meant that we couldn't support those random apps. I can only imagine how that would have multiplied if an LTS had started presenting said random apps the same way as officially supported software.
[17:04] <Eickmeyer[m]> sitter[m]: That would've been up to ahoneybun and Rik Mills to communicate to other members of the team they thought should be there.
[17:04] <sitter[m]> right. again. what's to be learnt from the backroom dealings here?
[17:05] <Eickmeyer[m]> sitter: Are you an active member of the Kubuntu team?
[17:05] <arraybolt3[m]> I notice in particular that everyone I've seen who was really upset with the change also hasn't spent tons of time in #ubuntu:libera.chat. I do, and I'm thankful that this didn't turn into the explosion it could have been. Our IRC support team may have been clawing down the door to get the change reverted had it gone all the way.
[17:06] <arraybolt3[m]> Remember that the community isn't just the devs. There's some parts of the community that are invisible if you don't know where to look. Parts like the IRC supporters, the mailing list moderators, the documentation writers. These people would have all possibly suffered. The decision to avoid Flatpak by default is a huge boon in that area.
[17:06] <sitter[m]> Eickmeyer[m]: what do you mean by that?
[17:06] <sitter[m]> no, I'm an active member of kubuntu-members in good standing
[17:06] <sitter[m]> whether you consider that team or not I cannot say
[17:07] <Eickmeyer[m]> sitter[m]: Simple question. Are you actively contributing to Kubuntu?
[17:07] <arraybolt3[m]> (Beyond upstream KDE.)
[17:07] <sitter[m]> yes
[17:07] <Eickmeyer[m]> So, you consider yourself to be actively contributing to Kubuntu directly, and not just upstream KDE?
[17:08] <sitter[m]> yes
[17:08] <Eickmeyer[m]> Within the past 6 months?
[17:08] <sitter[m]> yes
[17:08] <sitter[m]> are you trying to paint me in a corner?
[17:08] <Eickmeyer[m]> No, I'm just trying to figure out if you think you should've been invited, and that's what your issue is.
[17:09] <sitter[m]> no, my issue is ~kubuntu-members wasn't invited
[17:10] <arraybolt3[m]> Perhaps the Flavor Sync Meetings should have been more broadly announced?
 "and if I may switch my hat to my..." <- Can you elaborate on this point? How is the inclusion, or lack thereof, of the flatpak package negatively affecting upstream KDE development? 
[17:10] <arraybolt3[m]> sitter[m]: They were welcome to come, the announcement simply wasn't made on the ~kubuntu-members ML I assume. It was made in #ubuntu-community-team and I think a few other places.
[17:11] <sitter[m]> so. again. perhaps something to learn from?
[17:11] <arraybolt3[m]> arraybolt3[m]: Possibly.
[17:11] <sitter[m]> if you don't invite the people they won't come
[17:12] <arraybolt3[m]> (to be fair all of the active Kubuntu members I know of except for you are active on various Ubuntu-related IRC channels on Libera.Chat. It may have not been immediately apparent that announcing it on IRC wasn't enough. I actually didn't know you were a Kubuntu Member until this conversation, even though I've seen you in KDE development before.)
[17:12] <sitter[m]> aaronprisk[m]: putting hurdles in the users way to get our software seems worth discussing with upstream, surely?
[17:14] <sgmoore[m]> arraybolt3[m]: I like to think myself active with all my snap work and I do not hang out in ubuntu channels. Though I guess I should.
[17:15] <ahoneybun[m]> I think this is more my fault by not making a post on the mailing list. I didn't really know how far this could be shared to be honest from my POV. With that said it is certainly something to learn from on my part for sure.
[17:15] <sitter[m]> sgmoore: well, at least I'm not the only dev who didn't know lol
[17:15] <aaronprisk[m]> sitter[m]: Could that not apply to distros shipping flatpak and not snap by default?
[17:15] <arraybolt3[m]> sitter[m]: Forgive my possible ignorance, but I fail to understand how this is something upstream should have had a say in. Upstream developers are good at what they do. Very good. Developing Ubuntu itself is much, much different than upstream development, as both you and I likely understand since we both have contributed both to Kubuntu and to upstream KDE. Do we expect upstream KDE to understand the nuances and rationale behind
[17:15] <arraybolt3[m]> the entire Ubuntu ecosystem? Likely not.
[17:15] <sitter[m]> aaronprisk[m]: yep
[17:16] <arraybolt3[m]> sitter[m]: Ubuntu and some lesser-known immutable distros are the only ones to ship Snap by default that I know of. KDE neon avoids it. Linux Mint avoids it. Debian avoids it. Etc., etc., etc.
[17:16] <sitter[m]> neon doesn't avoid it. stop telling half truths
[17:16] <arraybolt3[m]> Snap can be enabled on any of those if the user wishes. None of them give it by default.
[17:17] <arraybolt3[m]> sitter[m]: I may misunderstand what Neon does then, sorry if I was wrong there.
[17:17] <sitter[m]> also you equating the kubuntu market with the linux mint market is laughable
[17:17] <sitter[m]> I couldn't care less what some cookie cutter distro used by 5 people does
[17:17] <sitter[m]> I do care what a distro used by millions does
[17:18]  * arraybolt3[m] > <@sitter:kde.org> I couldn't care less what some cookie cutter distro used by 5 people does
[17:18]  * arraybolt3[m] is slightly shocked to hear that Linux Mint is considered a cookie cutter distro used by 5 people
[17:18] <sitter[m]> obvious overstatement not withstanding ;)
[17:18] <arraybolt3[m]> sitter[m]: OK. Then how about Arch Linux, Debian, RHEL, openSUSE.
[17:19] <sitter[m]> arraybolt3: we are talking to all of them
[17:19] <sitter[m]> to the degree that I am involved (Which isn't a lot) many have technical problems
[17:19] <sitter[m]> (apparmor specifically and kernel patching - though that may have been fixed meanwhile)
[17:19] <Eickmeyer[m]> Ok, I think I see a problem here, and that's a mental shift problem. Somewhere along the line (and I had to rope Ubuntu Studio back from this mentality as well), Ubuntu Flavors, Kubuntu included, saw themselves as separate distributions from Ubuntu. This is not the case. They are all different out-of-the-box experiences of Ubuntu, but they're all Ubuntu. So, I think the biggest problem here is that the mentality of Kubuntu being
[17:19] <Eickmeyer[m]> separate from Ubuntu is a thing, and that needs to shift.
[17:19] <ahoneybun[m]> I think we should step back and focus more on how we can improve communication going forward.
[17:20] <sitter[m]> to have a working stack
[17:20] <sitter[m]> and then throw it out
[17:20] <arraybolt3[m]> I think we're getting too heated and misunderstanding out of a desire to "win the argument" (at least that's what I'm starting to do and I don't like it). Me and sitter seem to be missing each other's points, so I'm going to stop now for the sake of better cooperation.
[17:20] <arraybolt3[m]> s/stop/step back for a bit/
[17:20] <sitter[m]> is a different thing altogether. to my mind anyway
[17:21] <arraybolt3[m]> Sorry if anything I said came across wrong.
[17:21] <sitter[m]> nono. we are good. talking is good :)
[17:25] <ahoneybun[m]> sitter in the beginning of the chat it seemed that the main issue was the lack of communication on mailing list and general public, is that still correct?
[17:26] <sitter[m]> sure. having read some replies I have since developed new issues with the reasoning behind the announcement though, we can also dive into that ;)
[17:27] <ahoneybun[m]> Ah alright. It seems more that we needed to talk it though more though I think the general idea is that this should only effect the flavors and not distros that are based on the flavor itself.
[17:28] <sitter[m]> that is correct, yeah. I mean, derivatives do whatever they want anyway
[17:33] <sitter[m]> it really irks me that we could have had all this talk before hand. it greatly enriches each others understanding and empathy for concerns to just chat about things. in fact, I don't even mind this happening behind closed doors initially but at a point something as substantial as effectively dropping support for flatpak really should have been taken to a broader forum. and I appreciate that this can't be full on public because it'd lure
[17:33] <sitter[m]> the trolls out of the woodwork, but I would have expected ~kubuntu-members to get pulled in to a degree at the very least
[17:34] <sitter[m]> I am also not convinced that it is fair to lay that decision at your or Rik's feet. why should you take the ire of the community
[17:36] <Fallen> I have some thoughts on some of these points, but I am out for dinner. Back in 1.5 hrs. Generally no intention to single someone out to get a decision, to me it is a given that this should have been a council decision and I had comments in the doc suggesting it was.
[17:37] <ahoneybun[m]> sitter this is why I'm saying it's more my fault then anything else since I didn't clearly note it to the KC. Names also have not been noted who in the community made the call to approve it either I'm just saying it was me who signed it to own up to saying yes.
[17:37] <ahoneybun[m]> Canonical is not naming who signed it is the core of what I'm saying.
[17:38] <arraybolt3[m]> (As someone who was at the meeting, everyone seemed either neutral or positive to the change except for Rik, so I believe that the community team did believe that it was a council decision. We've had the developer community rise up and say "no, change this" with Ubuntu Pro and Canonical was willing to change things for us.)
[17:38] <arraybolt3[m]> (er, with the wording of Ubuntu Pro's announcement in apt.)
[17:40] <ahoneybun[m]> I was trying to voice that I didn't like the choice but I made my judgement based on information from Rik that they could just make the change either way no matter or say.
[17:40] <ahoneybun[m]> That's my fault and something I need to learn from.
 "it really irks me that we..." <- Dropping support implies that it's being purged from the repos or removed from users devices who are actively using it, which is not the case. Great care is being taken to avoid that. 
[17:44] <aaronprisk[m]> Asking for more transparency is a reasonable request. The flavour sync meetings are an effort to do just that. To bring in stakeholders from all over to provide feedback and encourage open dialogue.
[17:46] <sitter[m]> well, we certainly argue over the semantics but in the end the user is still worse off if they want to install a piece of software that is only available as a flatpak
[17:47] <arraybolt3[m]> What would be the suggested course of action for, say, an Ubuntu user who wanted to use a piece of software only available from the Arch User Repository?
[17:48] <sitter[m]> apples and oranges
[17:48] <arraybolt3[m]> Meh, yeah that wasn't a great example.
[17:49] <arraybolt3[m]> But my point is, all Linux distros only support package management systems that they have a reasonable amount of control and/or experience with. Arch has control over and experience with the Arch repos and the AUR. Debian has the same over the Debian Archive. Ubuntu, with the Ubuntu Archive and Snap Store. Fedora with their archive (not sure what it's called) and the Flatpak repos.
[17:50] <arraybolt3[m]> Ubuntu's devs don't have a whole lot of control over or experience with Flatpak. Or the AUR. Or Fedora's archives.
[17:50] <aaronprisk[m]> Again I could say the same about Fedora not shipping with snapd. I certainly empathize with your desire to maximize the availability of software to our users, but we cant reasonably ship, and more importantly support, every packaging format ootb.
[17:50] <arraybolt3[m]> Nor do the IRC supporters necessarily have the same.
[17:50] <arraybolt3[m]> If we can't do a good job of supporting something, is it not harmful to our users to appear that we can?
[17:51] <arraybolt3[m]> We aren't good at supporting Flatpak here, that's not what we do. It would be detrimental to pretend that we were good at it.
[17:51] <sitter[m]> you talking about user support or technical support?
[17:51] <arraybolt3[m]> I don't really know how the two differ, I'm talking about technical support on Ubuntu's (and its flavors') IRC channels, Matrix rooms, and forums, to name a few examples.
[17:52] <arraybolt3[m]> Oh, I get it.
[17:52] <sitter[m]> user support then :)
[17:52] <sitter[m]> but how does that change by not having flatpak installed?
[17:53] <arraybolt3[m]> If Flatpak is installed by default, it will give users the false idea that we can support Flatpaks.
[17:53] <sitter[m]> I don't see how
[17:53] <arraybolt3[m]> We support Snaps, and Snap is enabled by default. We support the Ubuntu archive, and apt is enabled by default. If we enable Flatpak by default, our users would reasonbly assume that we can support Flatpaks.
[17:53] <sitter[m]> you aren't support knewstuff, do you?
[17:53] <sitter[m]> *supporting
[17:53] <arraybolt3[m]> There's a specific disclaimer in KNewStuff about the content there being unsupported.
[17:53] <sitter[m]> my spelling is horrible today, sorry 
[17:53] <arraybolt3[m]> lol, been there, done that, hated it.
[17:53] <sitter[m]> so why can't we add that for flatpak?
[17:55] <arraybolt3[m]> I mean, you have a good point. My first response is that, I have never seen a support request related to the *content* in KNewStuff. I've seen people gripe when KNewStuff itself stops working, but never about the content. I would guess that would be because it's not so widely used.
[17:55] <arraybolt3[m]> An app store like Discover is front-and-center to the OS. People are going to use that, possibly a lot. And we both know that users are fantastic at missing notices, warnings, etc.
[17:55] <sitter[m]> but ... discover offers knewstuff content?
[17:56] <arraybolt3[m]> ...it does?
[17:56] <arraybolt3[m]> I've actually never seen that before.
[17:56] <arraybolt3[m]> Actually, come to think of it, I might have seen it.
[17:56] <ahoneybun[m]> Perhaps it would be a good idea to move this to #ubuntu-community-team 's channel?
[17:57] <aaronprisk[m]> ahoneybun[m]: Yes, please feel free to move the conversation there.
[17:57] <ahoneybun[m]> I believe if we can include others that can be effected it would be best to have it there.
[17:57] <arraybolt3[m]> (Personally, this is somewhat Kubuntu-focused, I feel it's more on-topic here, but then again I don't work for Canonical and aaronprisk does and ahoneybun has a good point.)
[17:58] <sitter[m]> the discover side certainly seems more on point here but I don't mind much where we talk :)
[17:58] <aaronprisk[m]> arraybolt3[m]: Some of the points brought up extend outside of Kubuntu specifically, so moving it there would make sense. 
[19:54]  * valorie just read up
[19:55] <valorie> thanks to all for keeping the discussion friendly and focused
[19:55] <valorie> I do not want to see flatpak capabilities disappear from Discover
[19:56] <valorie> I use them and not snaps
[19:57] <valorie> altho sgmoore[m] might change my mind....