This is not pointed to any moderator.

What happened?

WeChat, or 微信 in Chinese, is an instant messaging app used by many. It is closed source, from the client itself and server backend. And for us Linux users, it lacked a native client (there is an Electron client made by UOS, but that ain’t native and lacks many functions). At around March 5th, WeChat published a new so-called Universal version, whose main graphics framework is based on Qt.

The original package

At March 5th, 2024, the wechat-uos-bwrap is pushed to the AUR. Despite the initial commit is not able to launch, this error was fixed quickly in the following commits. Mysteriously, after 2 days, leaeasy submitted wechat-beta-bwrap. Which, if you look at the second commit of wechat-uos-bwrap, the “beta” one is surprisingly similar to the original one.

Whats wrong with those packages?

Well, those are duplicated packages.

And that’s the biggest problem. It violates AUR submission guidelines:

If it is currently maintained, changes can be submitted in a comment for the maintainer’s attention. If it is unmaintained or the maintainer is unresponsive, the package can be adopted and updated as required. Do not create duplicate packages.

wechat-uos-qt is still being actively maintained, while adding dozens of new feature. Using the fact that Chinese moderators are unable to act due to business and foreign moderators, those duplicate packages grew like a wild fire. I do hope the community have variations over the packaging method, but that is not a good excuse to intentionally cheat. Next time you hear a call for more packagers, think about what happened before to wechat-uos-bwrap. Do not waste your time on it.

PS: mail archive