Announcing Flatpak 1.15.12 (development prerelease)

[Simon McVittie]

Flatpak 1.15.12 is available here:
https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/releases/tag/1.15.12

a24f870de1096f04c6d6992cef851f8eea5f99f2a389e425e1ea73fbb9c02e3b *flatpak-1.15.12.tar.xz

This is a development prerelease for the adventurous, part of the 1.15.x
branch, which will (hopefully soon) lead to a 1.16.0 stable release. Don't
include this version in stable OS distributions.

The 1.15.11 release (which was not announced here) had a regression
causing crashes for users of `flatpak --user` when installing apps,
extensions or runtimes that use the "extra data" mechanism, which was
fixed in 1.15.12 by reverting the change that caused it. Other changes
in 1.15.11 and 1.15.12 include:

Dependencies:

 * In distributions that compile Flatpak to use a separate bubblewrap
   executable, version 0.11.0 is recommended (but not required).
   The minimum bubblewrap continues to be 0.10.0.

 * In distributions that compile Flatpak to use a separate xdg-dbus-proxy
   executable, version 0.1.6 is recommended (but not required).
   The minimum xdg-dbus-proxy continues to be 0.1.0.

Enhancements:

 * Allow applications like WebKit to connect the AT-SPI accessibility tree
   of processes in a sub-sandbox with the tree in the main process (#5898)

     * New sandboxing parameter `flatpak run --a11y-own-name`, which is
       like `--own-name` but for the accessibility bus

     * flatpak-portal API v7: add new sandbox-a11y-own-names option, which
       accepts names matching `${FLATPAK_ID}.*`

     * Apps may call the `org.a11y.atspi.Socket.Embedded` method on names
       matching `${FLATPAK_ID}.Sandboxed.*` by default

 * `flatpak run -vv $app_id` shows all applicable sandboxing parameters
   and their source, including overrides, as debug messages (#5895)

 * Add --device=usb, a subset of --device=all

 * Introduce USB device listing

     * Apps can list which USB devices they want to access ahead of time by
       using the `--usb` parameter. Check the manpages for more
       information about the accepted syntax.

     * Denying access to USB devices is also possible with the `--no-usb`
       parameter. The syntax is equal to `--usb`.

     * Both options merely store metadata, and aren't used by Flatpak itself.
       This metadata is intended to be used by the (as of now, still in
       progress) USB portal to decide which devices the app can enumerate and
       request access.

 * Add support for KDE search completion

 * Preconfigured repositories can now be set up by OS vendors using
   `${datadir}/flatpak/remotes.d` (typically /usr/share/flatpak/remotes.d),
   in addition to `${sysconfdir}/flatpak/remotes.d` (typically
   /etc/flatpak/remotes.d) which is intended for local sysadmin use

Bug fixes:

 * Update libglnx to 2024-08-23 (#5918)

     * fix build in environments that use -Werror=return-type, such as
       openSUSE Tumbleweed (#5778)

     * add a fallback definition for G_PID_FORMAT with older GLib

     * avoid warnings for g_steal_fd() with newer GLib

     * improve compatibility of g_closefrom() backport with newer GLib

 * Update meson wrap file for bubblewrap to version 0.11.0:

     * drop Autotools build system

     * improve handling of EINTR

     * improve handling of socket control messages

     * improve compatibility with busybox

     * improve compatibility with older Meson

     * fix deprecation warnings

 * Update meson wrap file for xdg-dbus-proxy to version 0.1.6:

     * compatibility with D-Bus implementations that pipeline the
       authentication handshake, such as sd-bus and zbus

     * compatibility with D-Bus implementations that use non-consecutive
       serial numbers, such as godbus and zbus

     * broadcast signals can be allowed without having to add TALK permission
       (#5828)

     * fix memory leaks

 * Fix some memory leaks

 * Translation updates: cs, pl, zh_CN

Internal changes:

 * Better const-correctness (#5913)
 * Fix a shellcheck warning in the tests (#5914)

-- 
Simon McVittie, Collabora Ltd. / Debian
on behalf of the Flatpak maintainers
release signing key: gpg --locate-external-keys smcv at debian.org