webkitgtk: add support for experimental features

[lilyinstarlight]

Description of changes

Some webkitgtk consumers (e.g. Tauri apps) can benefit from and use WebRTC, but we do not make the necessary experimental features available currently. This provides an off-by-default boolean switch to allow enabling them for downstream packages

If the maintainers would like, we could flip this to on-by-default, since I do not believe they necessarily cause problems in applications that do not use them. But I will leave it up to you and will adjust the PR accordingly if that is requested

Things done

• Built on platform(s)
  • x86_64-linux
  • aarch64-linux
  • x86_64-darwin
  • aarch64-darwin
• For non-Linux: Is sandboxing enabled in nix.conf? (See Nix manual)
  • sandbox = relaxed
  • sandbox = true
• Tested, as applicable:
  • NixOS test(s) (look inside nixos/tests)
  • and/or package tests
  • or, for functions and "core" functionality, tests in lib/tests or pkgs/test
  • made sure NixOS tests are linked to the relevant packages
• Tested compilation of all packages that depend on this change using nix-shell -p nixpkgs-review --run "nixpkgs-review rev HEAD". Note: all changes have to be committed, also see nixpkgs-review usage
• Tested basic functionality of all binary files (usually in ./result/bin/)
• 24.05 Release Notes (or backporting 23.05 and 23.11 Release notes)
  • (Package updates) Added a release notes entry if the change is major or breaking
  • (Module updates) Added a release notes entry if the change is significant
  • (Module addition) Added a release notes entry if adding a new NixOS module
• Fits CONTRIBUTING.md.

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[SuperSandro2000]

we could flip this to on-by-default, since I do not believe they necessarily cause problems in applications that do not use them.

I think it would be cool, if we could avoid the extra webkitgtk build if we could clarify how this would affect applications that do not use it. I am going to try to forward this to people who maybe can answer that. (mixed this up with qtwebview)

[nyabinary]

we could flip this to on-by-default, since I do not believe they necessarily cause problems in applications that do not use them.

I think it would be cool, if we could avoid the extra webkitgtk build if we could clarify how this would affect applications that do not use it. I am going to try to forward this to people who maybe can answer that. (mixed this up with qtwebview)

I agree that it would be nice if we could just set experimental features to default to on.

[jtojnar]

If the maintainers would like, we could flip this to on-by-default, since I do not believe they necessarily cause problems in applications that do not use them.

Would be nice to see some docs/research on the actual impact.

[SuperSandro2000]

I've tried to research that but only really could find this https://trac.webkit.org/changeset/208495/webkit

[jtojnar]

Hmm, looks like those include Web APIs (e.g. CSS features) so we should really not enable them by default.

For example, a website could have been using CSS grid, a feature that would have been previously ignored. Because it had been unstable at the time, I can imagine enabling it could have broken such website’s layout, or even crashed Epiphany and other webkitgtk based browsers.

[nyabinary]

Hmm, looks like those include Web APIs (e.g. CSS features) so we should really not enable them by default.

For example, a website could have been using CSS grid, a feature that would have been previously ignored. Because it had been unstable at the time, I can imagine enabling it could have broken such website’s layout, or even crashed Epiphany and other webkitgtk based browsers.

So the pr in it current state should be good, since experimental is not enabled by with this, right?

[amaxine]

As is this still triggers a pointless rebuild, and if this override is enabled for any packages directly in nixpkgs that's an immediate +1 on the already painful number of rebuilds whenever webkitgtk has updates.

But I'd agree that in its current state, where this is not enabled by default for any packages and just provides a trivial way of overriding this for your own use, it seems fine.

[surfaceflinger]

Would love to have webrtc working in Dorion 👍

[thenbe]

I'm currently using a flake similar to this to enable WebRTC for Tauri v2 (via webkitgtk_4_1), and it'd be cool to avoid rebuilds.

[SuperSandro2000]

I just decided power of my watered soup, that this is good to go

[SuperSandro2000]

I've build webkitgtk_6_0, webkitgtk, webkitgtk_4_1 and webkitgtk.overrideAttrs { enableExperimental = true; } locally after a rebase and things work as expected.