[Users] Consider packaging claws-mail as flatpak distributable?

[Danny van Heumen]

Hi all,

A quick follow-up. I've got a preliminary first version of the flatpak
manifest for Claws-Mail. This currently includes all but the
python-plugin. It does still have some issues to be resolved.

https://github.com/flathub/flathub/pull/1140

A few questions regarding this work as I am finalizing and aligning
with the Flathub people at the same time:

1. I currently deploy mostly newest releases of dependencies.
Would that be okay or would the preference be to strictly follow the
versions of e.g. the debian package? (I would personally prefer newest
as that is the benefit of having flatpak.)

2. When finalizing packaging on Flathub, would you as Claws-Mail
developers want to have write-access to the github repo too? (It would
be preferred, as I am not directly affiliated with the team.) If you
let me know a few github user accounts, I can add them to the PR.)

3. Does claws-mail require access to directories outside of $HOME?
Currently I have identified '~/.claws-mail' and '~/.bogofilter'. I'm
not sure if other plugins still need specific directories to be
accessible.

I'll keep you updated once significant progress is made.

Kind regards,
Danny



On Tue, 27 Aug 2019 20:26:54 +0200
Andrej Kacian <ticho at claws-mail.org> wrote:

> On Tue, 27 Aug 2019 19:38:28 +0200
> Danny van Heumen wrote:
> 
> > I'm sorry to hear that.
> > 
> > Is there any way I can help with this? I'm not guaranteeing anything
> > yet, but I would be interested to look into it. However, I am not
> > familiar with building claws-mail etc. at all.
> > 
> > What I am thinking is, I suspect there is a single "recipe" that
> > should be maintained. Maybe I can see if we can write the "recipe"
> > once and see if we can take it up as part of the build process?
> > 
> > Do you have something like a build process right now?
> > 
> > If so, would you be able to give some assistance in case of
> > questions?
> > 
> > Actually, come to think about it. The Flatpak solution might be more
> > attractive in the long run as it covers a larger number of distros.
> > (That is, assuming that flatpak and similar packaging formats won't
> > fail miserably.)  
> 
> You can inspire yourself by reading any of the usual Linux distro
> packages, they all list dependencies, as well as steps to build Claws
> Mail itself.
> 
> You can also look at our Windows port repository, which does something
> similar to Flatpak - an installable package containing Claws Mail,
> together with all the required libraries (minus the native Windows
> ones, of course).
> 
> I cannot promise anything regarding building and hosting the resulting
> Flatpak recipe, but you're free to contribute it to flathub.org as an
> unofficial package.
> 
> P.S. There's no need to send your replies both to me *and* to the
> mailing list, I am subscribed to the list. :)
> 
> Regards,