This week, Chromium's build system gained the capability to generate Flatpak packages of the browser. A commit by Google's Tom Anderson introduced the necessary packaging scripts and an 'enable_flatpak' build flag, allowing for the direct creation of Flatpak bundles from the Chromium source. This development means that official, Google-maintained Flatpak distributions of Chromium or Google Chrome are now technically feasible. Previously, Flatpak versions of the browsers were exclusively community-maintained and unofficial. However, developers cautioned that this change "does not mean official Flatpak support is coming" directly from Google, emphasizing that the new build capability is distinct from a commitment to officially publish Flatpak packages.