appstream-glib-0.4.1

[Fernando de Oliveira]

​http://people.freedesktop.org/~hughsient/appstream-glib/releases/appstream-glib-0.4.1.tar.xz

​https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hughsie/appstream-glib/master/NEWS

Version 0.4.1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Released: 2015-07-20

New Features:
 - Add a 'compare' command to appstream-util (Richard Hughes)
 - Add a 'mirror-local-firmware' command to appstream-util (Richard
   Hughes)
 - Add a flag to relax the AppData Category=Settings requirement
   (Richard Hughes)
 - Add a flag to use non-optimal data sources when building metadata
   (Richard Hughes)
 - Add an 'incorporate' command to appstream-util (Richard Hughes)
 - Add two flags to veto-ignore to relax the requirements for metadata
   (Richard Hughes)

Bugfixes:
 - Be less strict when loading incorrect AppData files (Richard Hughes)
 - Do not duplicate <location> tags within a release (Richard Hughes)
 - Do not expect the INF ClassGuid to be the ESRT GUID (Richard Hughes)
 - Don't crash when parsing a <release> with no description (Richard
   Hughes)
 - Fix a potential crash spotted by clang (Richard Hughes)
 - Fix autogen with latest Intltool (Matthias Klumpp)
 - Ignore the prefix when loading system-wide AppStream information
   (Richard Hughes)
 - Include <pkgname> when writing the ignored metadata (Richard Hughes)
 - Only write the release timestamp if non-zero (Richard Hughes)
 - Remove the AppData veto when incorporating metadata (Richard Hughes)
 - Search harder when using AS_ICON_LOAD_FLAG_SEARCH_SIZE (Richard
   Hughes)
 - Sort multiple <icon> entries by name (Richard Hughes)
 - Update the SPDX licence list to v2.0 (Richard Hughes)
 - When building metadata with the use-fallback flag accept legacy icon
   names (Richard Hughes)

[Fernando de Oliveira]

I want to close this ticket as wontfix and open a new one: Archive appstream-glib-0.4.1.

We have in the book:

gnome/applications/gucharmap.xml:      <xref linkend="appstream-glib"/>, 
gnome/applications/gnome-system-monitor.xml:      <xref linkend="appstream-glib"/> and
gnome/applications/gnome-terminal.xml:      <xref linkend="appstream-glib"/>

I removed old appdata-tools and all old until appstream-glib-0.4.1 from my system and they build and work.

As dependency, it should be removed from gucharmap, and moved to optional in gnome-system-monitor and gnome-terminal, so external links.

Opinions, please?

[bdubbs@…]

I see that appstream-glib is now optional for these other applications, but do we know what it really does? If it provides something thing useful then we should keep it, but if not I agree that we could archive it and make it external.

Perhaps it's only useful in a GNOME desktop, but I don't know.

[Fernando de Oliveira]

I never understood the use of it. What I can understand in the project pages is that it can be used to create a software center.

Personal opinion is that they are always changing the project. Today, I discovered that they added back appdata-validate, which once was part of app-tools, IIRC.

I needed to add them because package build failures. Then the same packages stopped requiring it.

Paraphrasing you (as I paraphrased Pierre, the other they and forgot to mention): If it provides something useful then we should keep it, but if not I agree that we could archive it and make it external.

I search, search, and never find a relevant sentence on why it is needed by anybody.

Oh, yes, Ubuntu and many or some other distributions have a software center. And this SC can even offer paif software, IIRC. Is that the the kind of use for the Appstream project?

Some searches I did (had done it months ago and repeated recurrently, but always ended up with a sense that I didn't understand anything they say or it is intrinsically useless, at least for me, and much probably to BLFS, unless we can't build something without it.

​http://people.freedesktop.org/~hughsient/appstream-glib/index.htm

AppStream-Glib

This library provides GObjects and helper methods to make it easy to
read and write AppStream metadata. It also provides a simple DOM
implementation that makes it easy to edit nodes and convert to and from
the standardized XML representation.

What this library allows you to do:

    • Read and write compressed AppStream XML files
    • Add and search for applications in an application store
    • Get screenshot image data and release announcements
    • Easily retrieve the best application data for the current locale
    • Efficiently interface with more heavy-weight parsers like expat

For more information about what AppStream is, please see the wiki.

​http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Distributions/AppStream/

The AppStream software provides basic tools to build an AppStream
database. It also provides libappstream, a library which makes it easy
to write software-center-like applications by providing access to the
AppStream metadata. See more on the project page.

​http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Distributions/AppStream/Software/

Utilities to generate, maintain and access the AppStream Xapian
database.

What is the AppStream software?

LibAppStream makes it easy to access component information from the
AppStream database over a nice GObject-based interface. It uses a
PackageKit plugin to automatically (re)generate the AppStream Xapian
database of software components. The libappstream library can be used
with a wide variety of programming languages (via
GObject-Introspection). In combination with PackageKit in can be used to
build software-centers. The software also provides a command-line tool
to query the contents of the AppStream database. Additionally, the
software will abstract some differences which exist between
distributions in terms of providing metadata or handling things like
screenshots, so you don't have to worry about this.

The AppStream libappstream API might still change a little during the
development process. We will notify about any API/ABI breaks in the
release notes. (But please keep that in mind when using it!)

[Fernando de Oliveira]

I didn't mean to be rude. Really don't understand this package.

Just discovered one example:

​https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Software

Depends on this package.

​https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-software/tree/configure.ac

...
dnl ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
dnl - Check library dependencies
dnl ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
PKG_CHECK_MODULES(GTK, gtk+-3.0 >= 3.16 gio-unix-2.0)
PKG_CHECK_MODULES(PACKAGEKIT, packagekit-glib2 >= 1.0.0)
PKG_CHECK_MODULES(APPSTREAM, appstream-glib >= 0.3.5)
...

Perhaps the other packages need depends on appstream-glib to produce the data needed by this package.

Have also finally found the goal:

​https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/GnomeGoals/AppDataGnomeSoftware

Guidelines

Every software center that exists allows the user to look at screenshots
and a long description of the application before it is installed. For
most users it allows them to answer the question Do I want to install
this application?

Traditionally in Linux distributions, we have none of this data for the
vast majority of our desktop user-installable applications. To solve
this, we have defined a new data file, which the upstream project can
optionally translate using the same technique as GSetting schemas or
Desktop files. Rather than create a new schema from scratch, we'll be
using a subset of the AppStream metadata proposal.

Applications wishing to have long descriptions, screenshots and other
useful things are required to ship one or more files in
/usr/share/appdata/%{id}.appdata.xml. In GNOME 3.14, we will only be
showing applications that include AppData information, but until then
it's optional but highly recommended. 

Still thinking in dubio pro reo, so, I'm ready to do the update. But the more a learn about it, the more I lean to condemn it to the archive. :-)

[bdubbs@…]

Thank you for all the extensive research. I think you did a pretty comprehensive search.

That said, I do not think it provides anything significant for a BLFS user. Changing it to an external optional dependency for those apps that can use it seems to be the right thing to do.

[Fernando de Oliveira]

Fixed at r16270.

[Fernando de Oliveira]

OK, thanks.

Sorry, was using batch mode, didn't see your reply

Will do it in some moment.

[Fernando de Oliveira]

In a some minutes.