Dear all,

I'm looking for options/advice here. See [1], and a bit of context:

- RStudio (now Posit.co) publishes two packages named rstudio (with RStudio
Desktop) and rstudio-server (with RStudio Server). They are independent and
have many files in common. Recent versions are based on Electron (for
Desktop) and have Quarto support.

- In Fedora, we decided to package all the common files in the rstudio
package, then build rstudio-desktop and rstudio-server for these products,
with just the specific files. In our build, we rely on QtWebEngine for the
Desktop version and disable Quarto, because it would be a nightmare to
package (requires Deno).

Now the issue [1]: there's always been confusion among users that at some
point install the rstudio package provided by Posit (which provides
everything), many times because RStudio prompts that there's a new version
available and they just go click unknowingly. After some time, the package
manager "updates" it to our version when we hit stable, and RStudio Desktop
is gone (because rstudio-desktop is not present). Some time ago, I disabled
the "new version" notification dialog to mitigate this, but these days this
happens more and more frequently because users want Quarto and specifically
opt for the package provided by Posit.

[1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2270191

What do you think is the best way to mitigate this? Options:

1. Keep things as they are, just tell the users to exclude the rstudio
package in the dnf configuration. Pros: no changes required. Cons: it's
clear that users don't know how to do this. And more documentation rarely
solves this kind of problem.

2. Make rstudio Requires rstudio-desktop. Pros: When the package manager
updates to our version, at least there's a working version of RStudio
installed. Cons: Server users shouldn't need Desktop installed. Still
confusing to users.

3. Rename rstudio as rstudio-common, keep rstudio as a metapackage that
just Requires rstudio-desktop. Pros: Same as before + Server doesn't need
Desktop. Cons: Still confusing to users.

4. Rename rstudio as rstudio-common, make this one Conflicts rstudio. Pros:
You either install rstudio from Posit, or rstudio-desktop from Fedora. And
I'm not sure about this, but does installing one remove the other? Or does
dnf at least show the conflict and the user decides? Cons: `dnf install
rstudio` doesn't work anymore, so it's less discoverable. And we have a
similar issue with rstudio-server anyways that cannot be easily solved. But
I suppose that admins installing rstudio-server know how to prevent package
updates.

5. Introduce some version component that makes our package versions be
sorted < than Posit's. Pros: Upgrades never happen when a user opts for
packages provided by Posit. Cons: I don't know how to do this without
breaking our updates. Probably other issues?

Any advice? Other options not considered here?

Best,
-- 
Iñaki Úcar
--
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