On 2019-11-14 16:13, Denis Arnaud wrote:

Thanks Petr for your answer!

Let's give the COPR short-term solution a try, then :)

What is frustrating is that we cannot get our hands on the package source for Protobuf for RHEL/CentOS, and we cannot therefore know who maintains it at RedHat.

The maintainer is (usually, effectively) also the Bugzilla assignee.

For Boost for instance, which is also a RedHat core package, I know the RedHat maintainer (Jon Wakely) and can co-maintain Boost with him and have an influence on (non-EPEL) RHEL/CentOS Boost.

In my personal opinion, that's the way it should be; it benefits both Red Hat and the community.

At least, we get visibility on when, why and how Boost is rebuilt on RHEL/CentOS. It would be nice to achieve the same with Protobuf. But I have no clue on how to identify who at RedHat is (are) the main maintainer(s) of Protobuf. I am sure they would be interested if I/we can build protobuf with Python bindings for RHEL/CentOS 8 (at least on EPEL). And it seems strange to me that RHEL/CentOS misses Python bindings for Protobuf (which is the cornerstone to many frameworks (e.g., gRPC)). I wonder how many applications work at all. Or maybe those Python bindings are build-time only in the new modularization framework? It would help to have a way, for Fedora/EPEL volunteers, to be able to reach out to RedHat core package maintainers, at least for cross-awareness, knowledge sharing and potential collaboration.

Kind regards

Denis

14 Nov. 2019 15:27, Petr Viktorin <pviktori@redhat.com
<mailto:pviktori@redhat.com>> wrote:

    On 2019-11-11 11:45, Denis Arnaud wrote:
     > Hi,
     >
     > the Python (3) bindings are missing on RHEL/CentOS/EPEL 8 for
    the
     > protobuf package (https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/protobuf).
     > A bug request has been created on Bugzilla
     > (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1765844), but as
    no status
     > has been given, I was wondering whether someone could shed
    some light on
     > the context.
     >
     > Since protobuf is a RedHat core package (maintained by RedHat
    and
     > therefore not managed by Fedora/EPEL), it appears as a kind
    of black box
     > from Fedora perspective. On Fedora (Rawhide, 31), the Python (3)
     > bindings are generated/packaged (see for instance
     >
    https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2019-e3a662fe8b and
     > https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/rpminfo?rpmID=19440119),
    but for
     > some reason, those Python bindings are not generated by
    RedHat for
     > RHEL/CentOS 8.
     >
     > 1. Would anyone from RedHat be able to provide some heads up
    on why
     > those Python 3 bindings are missing for Protobuf, and/or an
    approximate
     > timeline for when it would be generated?

    Hi!
    We just talked about this among Red Hat python-maint. (Sorry for
    the
    delay!) We don't have influence over this package; unfortunately we
    can't help directly.

     > 2. Would RedHat need help with packaging protobuf on
    RHEL/CentOS/EPEL 8?

    At this level "Red Hat" is not a single entity. You're probably not
    reaching the right people on this list.
    If the packager isn't active in Fedora or on Bugzilla, then
    unfortunately, the way to get them to respond is to file a customer
    support ticket.
    Another way to approach this is change EPEL rules somehow to
    make it
    possible to build subpackages like this. From what I understand,
    it's
    being discussed, but it'll take time to get sorted out.

     > 3. Would you recommend another way for Fedora packagers/users
    to get
     > their hands on the python3-protobuf/protobuf-python3 package?
    For
     > instance, through COPR, or some module we may have missed.

    Building a replacement protobuf package in COPR is the best
    short-term
    solution.

    Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.