Please make libmodulemd an optional dependency

[Conan-Kudo]

For a number of distributions, modules are not desirable and it adds extra unwanted dependencies. It'd be great if it were possible to not require libmodulemd for building libdnf and using dnf. This would be great for distributions like Yocto, Mer, openSUSE, OpenMandriva, and others that don't care about Fedora Modularity.

[tpgxyz]

Any news on it ?

[robert-scheck]

I also would like to see libmodulemd as an optional dependency, because only Fedora/RHEL seem to use modularity. Have there been any successful downstream efforts to hack it simply out somehow?

[Conan-Kudo]

No. There has been some interest in using modularity technology in other distributions, though the lack of information on how to actually make modules has made that a bit difficult. I would still like this to eventually become an optional dependency, though...

[robert-scheck]

…I fully agree with the need to build libdnf without libmodulemd optionally.

[Conan-Kudo]

That's already planned for the next major version of DNF, but don't expect modularity to not be enabled in all major distributions shipping DNF. Cross-distro compatibility more or less depends on it.

[robert-scheck]

So, you're saying that building libdnf without libmodulemd support leads to loss of cross-distro compatibility? What would that mean in the end? Just that I'm not able to install modules on e.g. a niche distribution which decided to opt-out from modules? That would be absolutely fine here.

[Conan-Kudo]

Well, there's a bunch of consequences:

• No building packages for a target distribution using modules on a host distribution with no support for it
• No querying repositories for a target distribution or repository that uses modularity
• No ability to use repositories that offer and use modules

and so on...

[robert-scheck]

…sounds still perfect for a niche distribution!

[Conan-Kudo]

Well, if you don't care about any of those things for any reason, sure. But again, that's going to be a year away, at least.

[jan-kolarik]

In dnf5 this issue is already covered here. Closing this one.