The OBS Studio open-source screencasting and streaming app has called out Fedora’s poor Flatpak packaging of the application and is threatening as going as far as legal action if it isn’t addressed.
Initially raised three weeks ago was this Fedora Flatpak SIG ticket over the “broken” OBS Studio Flatpak from Fedora being presented as an official package:
“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/463We 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.”
This has led to other tickets raising the issue that Flathub packages should be higher priority or removed for Fedora duplicates within apps like the GNOME Software GUI.
But then in the past day there’s finally movement with OBS Studio threatening legal action over this “hostile” fork:
“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).”
And now activity for removing the OBS Studio Flatpak from the Fedora registry.
OBS Studio maintains the official Flatpak package on Flathub that is the recommended solution and better maintained.
At least from my outside observations since being alerted to the issue, OBS Studio seems to raise a valid issues with Fedora’s packaging and really doesn’t make much sense with Fedora’s repackaging when OBS is already publishing themselves to Flathub.
