A Quick Primer on Modularity

Modularity (formerly, Modularization) is an ongoing initiative in Fedora to resolve the issue of divergent, occasionally conflicting lifecycles of different components. A module provides functionality (such as a web server) and includes well-integrated and well-tested components (such as Apache httpd and the libraries on which it depends). It can be deployed into production in various ways: as “classic” RPM packages or a container image, and is updated as a whole. Different modules can emphasize new features, stability, security, etc. differently.

Modules differ from traditional packaging in certain important ways. Perhaps most importantly, they allow us to separate internal implementation details from the exposed interfaces of the module. Historically in Fedora, if a packager wanted to deliver a new web application, that would also often mean that they needed to package and carry the framework or other libraries used by that application. This tended to be a double-edged sword: on the one hand, those libraries were now available for anyone to pick up and use in Fedora. However, in many cases, this meant that the primary maintainer of that package might actually have no specific knowledge or understanding of it except that its lack would mean their application didn’t work. This can be a problem if a person is carrying around a library for the use of a single helper function and don’t want to be responsible for issues in the rest of the library.

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