Earlier this week, ulauncher got a fail to install bug due to missing webkitgtk. Looking into it, it seems like it was likely related to the approved deprecation of webkit2gtk-4.0. I started to test with moving to the next webkit, got a build working, but had to go to sleep before I tested that ulauncher actually worked with the updated library. But then the next day, the ticket is closed with a “installs fine” resolution. I was a bit confused, but only had a chance to investigate tonight.
It looks like a new package was created which provides the very shortly dropped package. I looked around in the list, here, and bugzilla, but couldn’t find any description of what happened. Is the deprecation still on, but this package is a temporary measure to keep things building? Or did the change get reversed with someone taking on maintaining a compat package? Basically I’m curious if I need to be testing against the upgraded package or not.
Please note that “deprecation” doesn’t mean removal: it means that the package is marked as “avoid use” and may be slated for removal in the future.
webkit2gtk4.0 was previously built from the source package webkitgtk, which is currently at version 4.1. webkitgtk provided a compat subpackage for version 4.0, and this was removed in Commit - rpms/webkitgtk - a1019362624fdab0454f018593f11cca62a5ff8f - src.fedoraproject.org. Then a compat package webkit2gtk4.0 was created, which is what you saw. Effectively, the code for 4.0 was moved from being a subpackage to a separate package.
If you can move ulauncher to webkit 4.1, that’d be the best solution. Otherwise, you can continue to use webkit2gtk4.0, but not that is deprecated, i.e. expected at some point to go away.
To avoid broken deps in dependent packages. mcatanzaro did not want to continue maintaining it as part of the webkitgtk srpm but there are still packages that need it.