add extension/plugin support for Octave packages

[jbingram]

See conversation with Octave maintainers here: https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?60319

Original request to Octave maintainers:
"Hi there. Description of the request: Add possibility to install the extra Octave functions and packages as Flatpak add-on, right from the Flatpak install page of Octave. Thank you for considering my request and keep up the good work"

[mtmiller]

I'm not sure that Flatpak supports this type of packaging. If you or someone else has insight into how that would work, please share that here.

[jbingram]

sounds good, I will ask. Thx for your prompt reply. Much appreciated.

[mtmiller]

FYI, if you are motivated to pursue this, resources include the Flatpak technical docs and the Flathub forum.

I am not a Flatpak core developer, but I've been building packages for a few years now, and as far as I know, I don't think that Flatpak wants to provide this kind of functionality. For what it's worth.

[jbingram]

@mtmiller Thx for your answer. I am a simple bio-mathematician, not a software dev, so it would be more than hard for me to package that. Flatpak provides the possibility to build add-on and add them to the flatpk app straight from the gnome software center? See for instance on VLC here :

We could imagine the same thing for Octave, where add-on are extra octave packages/functions (e.g. octave-linear-algebra, octave-symbolic, octave-statistics), i.e. the same ones that we can download and add to octave on linux package managers (synaptic, pacman ...)

[mtmiller]

I see, agree this does seem supported and possible. In Flatpak terminology, these are extensions. Each Octave Forge package could be built as its own extension on top of the base Octave application.

From what I can gather so far, this roughly involves

1. add extension loading support to org.octave.Octave
2. create a new repository to build a particular package as an extension
3. get that extension added to Flathub
4. repeat 2-3 for as many Octave Forge packages as one wants to support this way
5. ideally, automate the process or come up with a template to turn any package into a new extension

[jbingram]

That would be great. Thx Mike for the explanation.