Am 19. März 2026 22:39:48 MEZ schrieb "kleines Filmröllchen" <[email protected]>: >Hello all, > >this issue has been on my mind for a while, but I haven’t bothered to write to >the mailing list about it until now. > >Before Muflone took over maintainership of the davinci-resolve packages >(including davinci-resolve-studio and davinci-resolve-beta), the PKGBUILD >would automatically download the upstream package from Blackmagic’s website. >While Resolve is proprietary, the non-Studio version (and the beta) are freely >available, requiring not even a proper login with the vendor. The download >link on the website (https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve >) is behind a “registration” form, but this does not create a user account and >to the best external knowledge, the data entered here is never verified in any >way. Therefore, previous versions of the AUR package either used a download >link obtained by the maintainer after filling out the form with arbitrary >data, or replayed the form submission with fixed data during prepare(), >obtaining a new download link for the user. Either way, the package contents >are obviously always identical (regular hashing applied). The same is true for >packages retrieved through the support center >(https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/family/davinci-resolve-and-fusion ), >where in fact the Studio version (which requires a paid license) does not >require the submission of a form at all. > >However, Muflone changed this behavior to instead require a locally-downloaded >version of the upstream package in all three cases. The user reception for >this was mixed, additionally caused by the issue that AUR helpers need the >upstream package file located in special cache directories and not the current >working directory. Personally, I am strongly opposed to this change, but >Muflone has deflected criticism by pointing out that “Packages must not >contain black magic or unknown/hard to understand commands as users are >required to check the PKGBUILDs before installing/updating from AUR” >(https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/davinci-resolve?O=60#comment-1013733 ). > >While I agree in spirit, I disagree in this specific case. There are multiple >easy ways of obtaining the package that have been known for some time; a >review of the package commit history confirms this. On the contrary, some of >the changes required to make more technical aspects of the package work >properly will not be easy to understand for users at times. Furthermore, a >careful review of the AUR rules reveals to me that this kind of direct >download is perfectly allowed, since in my opinion it doesn’t circumvent any >real technical measures by the upstream provider; see elaboration above: form >contents are not checked by the Blackmagic website, and sometimes skippable >altogether. > >I’m writing to the mailing list to gain clarification on the matter: whether >the manual download is actually more compliant with AUR rules than what was >happening previously (before commit 7351177b553aa3983163450822bf251ec7f7ab75), >and whether the previous approach was even in violation. If not, I’m not >sure—if it’s possible that the AUR maintainers can urge Muflone to change it >back, that would be excellent, but I don’t remember the AUR working that way. >Blocking Muflone and/or orphaning the package is also not a reasonable >approach, unless there is someone to step up to maintainership for the package >(unfortunately not me, as I don’t use Resolve frequently enough, and often >need to stay on older versions due to bugs frequently introduced in new >releases). > >I hope I’m not overstepping any lines with this request, but as a user of the >package it is very annoying when a (new) maintainer degrades the user >experience for unclear/nebulous “rules compliance” and refuses to engage in >discussions about it. This is also the reason I am writing here in the first >place, I want to make it clear that I did of course try to discuss this on the >package comment page first; over a year ago in fact. I also finally want to >make it clear that this is not about piracy of the Studio version in any way >shape or form; while the package download for it is still freely available >from Blackmagic, it’s less important to change the PKGBUILD as the software >isn’t free in the first place. > >Greetings, > >kleines Filmröllchen >
Hello, While I don't want to invalid your argumentation with the following and I don't have a strong on the matter itself (although I would lean more to current setup as it doesn't work around something upstream has set in place for whatever reasons) but after reading this I want to point one thing out. The person in question isn't some random PKGBUILD maintainer who decided on a whim to change something to the inconvenience of the users. Muflone is part of the (wider) Arch team and a very active AUR moderator. So I am sure there went some thought and considerations into the change. And in general everyone can revert the change locally. Nobody is bound to do what the PKGBUILD on the aurweb does. Best regards
