Not sure what you mean with “system package”. But packman is a third party repository. So per definition not part of the openSUSE provided “system packages”. The same applies for flatpaks.
I meant RPM packages, i.e. packages used by zypper, OpenSUSE’s native package manager, which handles packages including system packages.
@asdhio I think you mean requirement for codec support… demands will go no where 
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Without the context, it is easy to interpret your statement with the intent of “SUSE is the big bad corporation that makes it more difficult for you to have nice things like codecs that let you watch Youtube, Netflix, and Prime Video”. It may not be explicitly said, but without the context, that’s how it comes across.
Sometimes more info is necessary to set the context.
Lacking that context, I jumped to a logical conclusion, and I likely wasn’t the only one. Hence my question - if SUSE makes the decision not to take on that legal liability but someone else wants to step up, they should make their intention known.
I certainly am not willing to take on that legal liability. And I would reasonably suggest that anyone who blames SUSE for not wanting to should be willing to do so. Not because I expect them to do so, but because they need to understand why SUSE has made that decision.
Unless you have specific evidence that says that this is the sole reason that the Packman maintainers have decided, after 25 years, to stop their work, then this is nothing but pure speculation. I would suggest that over the years there have been many people who have had issues and whatnot, and if a couple of people in the forums making suggestions and statements like this was the cause for their action, then they didn’t really grow much of a thick skin over 25 years. (I’m not saying that this is the case, I’m saying that if what you suggest is true, and I don’t personally think it is.)
This kind of speculation is not helpful and accomplishes nothing.
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In my opinion, @susejunky is treated here in an unreasonable way.
I do not read any of the negative points some seem to interpret from his posts. Even his trial to reword his thoughts so that eventual negative consequences from the language barrier might be erased did not help. Yes, I see a language barrier because I only see his good intentions as he, as a long time member here, always has shown.
There is no speculation about anything else being the reason that Packman will stop. The only thing he tris to explain is that over time:
- for years on end, the one and only advice to evevrybody that had a multi-media problem was: add the Packman repo and o the vendor switch. That cured about 98% of the multi-media problems.
- It is only since some time (he says "a few months/weeks, but I think it is about one ot two years) that the vendor switch resulted in problems for those using a product of which I only remember the name as Spanish: mesa (is that correct?)
- And it is I guess here on the forums only since about half a year that people explain they can live with multi-media without Packman.
Now we, the stupid people that only want to run some simple home computer, are of course lagging behind in the detailed knowledge about these developments. So a thread like this can expect posts from people that still are believing that one of the above is the real truth. No wonder that some of them now believe there is no future without Packman, or have a different starting point in assessing the news.
I think what would help is a summing up of those things that the average user still need Packman for. And then not in the form of: “you need it for X56G9”, but with an explanation like “That is only 5% of the Youtubes you might try to view”.
Sometimes I really wonder what is assumed what user population openSUSE is for.
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sigh
I simply stated that without the context of why SUSE has these restrictions in place, it’s easy for someone’s imagination to run wild and say that “it’s SUSE’s fault”. It isn’t; the blame lies with patent trolls, which creates the need for SUSE to legally protect itself.
That trope has been in this community for years, Henk, and you know that.
Stop reading into what I’ve written things that aren’t there.
There is no speculation as to why it’s stopping. The maintainers have said why they’re stopping. It’s clearly not because a few people have said that “Packman is no longer needed” or “Packman breaks your system”.
From their announcement:
That’s it. That’s the reason. Not any of this speculation that has been suggested, implied, or outright stated in this topic.
None of it.
The current maintainers are simply tired and don’t see the need for it because the need has been significantly reduced for it. And they’re willing to hand it off to anyone who wants to pick it up.
So if there are those here who really think openSUSE can’t survive with out it, step up and actually offer to take this over. You don’t need to know how to do everything, but don’t just complain, do something about it. If it’s that important to you, that is an option, and the Packman team has explicitly said they will help ensure a smooth handoff.
And yet some users want to push this narrative that the community has, over the years, been anything but appreciative for the efforts. Again, that’s simply not true - apart from a few outliers who decide they need to stir up controversy from time to time for whatever reason.
Anyone can read the actual announcement and not make illogical jumps or inferences about what’s needed. The Packman maintainers explicitly stated that Flatpak and other mechanisms have largely reduced the need for them to maintain the packages. They don’t see the need to duplicate those efforts any more.
These are the facts.
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I do not deny any of the facts you post.
I seem to be completely unable to make my points (like @susejunky ?).
Sorry.
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If you cannot accept your points to be “not taken as valid points” than that is an option. It implies that, if you had been, others would have seen you’re right. That could be called the “reversed superiority”. Same goes for the “We are the stupid …”.
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The Packman maintainers have made their announcement and put out a call for successors via their mailing list. This forum is only one small part of the openSUSE community, so I don’t think whether someone here has stepped forward is particularly relevant.
Let’s keep the discussion focused on what the announcement means for users and what alternatives or solutions might be available, and keep it constructive.
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Well, then we’re in agreement and there’s nothing to argue about or debate. 
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This is a valid point, and one that hampered (and still hampers) Linux from becoming a major desktop driver.
25 yrs of Packman is about the expiration time of patents in many countries. So when Packman started mp3 was patent encumbered, like most video codecs and open formats like ogg or flac were niche products that almost nobody used.
Discrete GPUs were a luxury and the AMD ones required a tailored Mesa to decode video. Hence in those days the “switch to Packman” was the only option if you wanted to use your PC to play almost any multimedia.
Then the mp3 patent expired, FLAC quality music became more common and Google devised and published free (variants of the OGG) codecs for their music services.
Then Google devised and published free video codecs for their YouTube services and the then default mp4 became generally available thanks to Cisco offering openh264 to the public free of charge.
Meanwhile the early AMD GPUs that needed the tailored Mesa began collecting dust in the basements and Mesa was removed from Packman-Essentials.
And so a couple of years ago most multimedia could be played on a license-free system and somebody began advising that the “full switch to Packman” was not really needed by most general purpose users.
About a year ago Flatpaks (and Appimages and whatever) began being available to the general user, so real alternatives to Packman (or to AUR or whatever for other distros) were available and those began being advised in the support channels.
Last July the last mpeg4video patents (divx, vidx) expired, so today most multimedia formats in general use can be played without patent restrictions.
That is basically why Packman is less relevant today than it was 25 years ago.
So who needs Packman (or alternatives) today?
- The streamers (a few basic coders are still patent-encumbered)
- The watchers of videos from broadcasters that use HEVC coding (used in Digital Terrestrial Television, not by YouTube) or from some well known paid streaming services
- Users of iPhones (their .heic images use HEVC coding)
- Users of some niche formats, the most relevant for the coming years being likely VVC/h266, the successor to HEVC, or those used in Blue-Ray videos.
Be aware that most recent GPUs include decoders and sometimes even coders for some of the restricted standards, so the affected audience is going to shrink as time passes.
Hope this helps to set some context about what is really at stake with the discontinuation of Packman.
[Sorry for the long post. Sorry for using some (too many?) abbreviations. Please don’t be nitpicking with the technical details, this is a layman’s abstract, not a technical digest]
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Thank you, Bruno. And no Sorries neeed. it to me is a nice, non-opinionated and factual post and that sometimes needs some words.
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That is a good summary. With many of the common codecs now available directly in the openSUSE repositories, together with the VLC repository covering additional codecs, vlc, and ffmpeg, the situation is quite different today.
There are still other use cases or requirements involving proprietary software, hardware drivers and less common formats, so these still need to be catered for, but the above may be sufficient for many typical desktop users.
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Looks like you got the context wrong.
I’m asking two questions:
and to make it clear that those questions have nothing to do with the reasons for the packman stop I put
in front.
So I’m not speculating. Read the forum threads of the last few months and you will find what I’m talking about.
But you will find no post of mine where I’m saying
By now I have been working more than fourty years in the IT business spending most of the time drafting and negotiating (large) IT-contracts. So I am well aware of the legal challenges an IT-company is facing. I do understand and support SUSEs approach.
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. . . . . . . . . .
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Thanks @OrsoBruno, for that great summary. Although the rest of thread has been entertaining and informative in its own way, I really appreciated this. While I assumed this was the overall situation, you were able to fill in many of the gaps for me.
I’ve been using openSUSE for only 4 months, but it’s my dedicated personal desktop OS daily driver, partnered by an iMac running Fedora Asahi.
Before this current announcement regarding Packman, I had actually planned to post the question of whether installing codecs with packman/opi, as detailed in so many videos, articles about the initial things to do with openSUSE once freshly installed, was still a valid recommendation.
I’ve never used Packman and yet, I’ve been able to play all media that I’ve thrown at my openSUSE install. Youtube, Amazon Prime, Netflix, TikTok… news feed sites, whatever… it all works. Same for streaming audio.
I genuinely wondered what it was that I was doing differently and/or missing.
I just wanted to hop on quickly and say a big “Thank You” to the Packman maintainers for 25 years of work and dedication.
I am one who likely would not have started using openSUSE (Tumbleweed) without the repository. When I first used, I didn’t know about Flatpaks, etc.
I am not in a position to be able to offer anything such as money or infrastructure, unfortunately. All I can say is thank you.
Cheers, jaymo
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I think you contribute by simply using openSUSE and being a community member. I too am unable to do more than this, but user requests and appreciation do help to motivate those who can contribute in similar and other ways.
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I drew a reasonable conclusion from what you posted. Clarity in writing isn’t on the audience, it’s on the author. I’ve been a writer for many years. That said, I also understand that writing in one’s non-native language is not an easy thing to do, especially when it’s not just a linguistic construct that’s involved, but a cultural construct.
In any event, we are saying the same thing - I am providing context around what you wrote that is intended to prevent the implication of:
At no point did I say that you said that, but what I should have been more clear about is that what you said can lead people to that specific conclusion, because lots of people want to blame SUSE for the fact that patent-encumbered technology isn’t included (and often point to other distros that do include it and say “so DistroX includes this stuff, so why can’t we?”.
I have also been working in the tech industry for a long time, both in IT and (post-IT career) for and with tech companies - including Novell when SUSE was a part of them. One of the things I’ve learned in my time is that in cases like this, you cannot assume people will understand everything that has gone into a decision, and just saying the things you said provides no basis for them to come to the same conclusion you did (that SUSE’s approach is reasonable and understandable).
So I provided additional context.
We are saying the same thing, but I feel that what I’m saying is providing more context. Let’s put this sub-discussion down, because continuing to argue about what we agree about serves no purpose.
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I just hope someone else takes packman-essentials at least and continues, because the situation without codecs from essentials is it very ugly.