Changes/Protobuf 6.x

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Protobuf 6.x

This is a proposed Change for Fedora Linux.
This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.

Summary

Update the Protobuf in Fedora from 3.19.6 to 6.33.5. Maybe even to 7.x as that is currently pre-release.

Owner

• Name: Miroslav Suchý
• Email: msuchy@redhat.com

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora Linux 45
• Last updated: 2026-02-06
• [<link to devel-announce post will be added by Wrangler> Announced]
• [<will be assigned by the Wrangler> Discussion thread]
• FESCo issue: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
• Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
• Release notes tracker: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>

Detailed Description

The last rebase of Protobuf happened in 2021. Since then, the upstream has undergone major changes. There were [several https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/protobuf/pull-request/26] attempts to do the rebase. It is clear that this upgrade will hurt; it will require the cooperation of many maintainers and may cause issues in some packages.

The new version of Protobuf is needed for rebase of grpc, which itself will have a big impact too.

About 180 packages directly depend on Protobuf. In past years many people tried to do non-breaking upgrade (thank you, music, spot, mochaa) but without success.

I propose creating a new package, protobuf3.19-compat. Move the protobuf package to the latest upstream version. Try to rebuild all packages that require protobuf with the new version. If the rebuild fails, change Requires to protobuf3.19-compat and notify the maintainers via a BZ report that they should migrate to the new protobuf on their own.

Benefit to Fedora

Many new packages require the new version of protobuf (e.g., google-cloud-aiplatform). The current situation blocks the inflow of these packages.

Scope

• Proposal owners:

• Other developers:

• Release engineering: #Releng issue number

• Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)

• Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

• Alignment with the Fedora Strategy:

Early Testing (Optional)

Do you require 'QA Blueprint' support? Y/N

Dependencies

About 180 packages directly depend on Protobuf.

Contingency Plan

• Contingency mechanism: (What to do? Who will do it?) N/A (not a System Wide Change)
• Contingency deadline: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
• Blocks release? N/A (not a System Wide Change), Yes/No

Documentation

N/A (not a System Wide Change)