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Fedora threatened with legal action from OBS Studio due to their Flatpak packaging
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this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2025
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It doesn't mean they are pushing flatpaks, but rather for whatever reason they decided to package their own flatpaks.
Flatpak can support different repos, so of course fedora can host its own. The strange bit is why bother repackaging and hosting software that is already packaged by the project itself on flathub?
One argument might me the security risk of poorly packaged flatpaks relying on eol of dependencies. Fedora may feel it is better to have a version that it packages in line with what it packages in its own repos?
I have some sympathy for that position. But it makes sense that it is annoying OBS when it is causing confusion if its a broken or poorly built repackags, and worse it sounds like things got very petty fast. I think OBS's request that fedora flag this up as being different from the flathub version wasn't unreasonable - but not sure what went down for it to get to thepoint of threatening legal action under misuse of the branding.
Fedora probably should make it clearer to its users what the Fedora Flatpak repo is for.
Fedora already has two “warnings” when it comes to their own packages.
First, Gnome Software shows a verified badge for all Flatpaks that are maintained by upstream. The Fedora Flatpak does not have this badge.
Second, when installing a Fedora Flatpak, the label “Fedora Flatpak” shows right under the install button
Sure, this isn’t perfect. Non-technical users may not understand what these mean. But it’s not like Fedora is intentionally trying to mislead users.