I'm not exactly sure which criterion would apply here, but I proposed it nonetheless. There's the brand new package manager criterion of course:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_36_Final_Release_Criteria#Installing.2C_removing_and_updating_software
But that was not exactly written with firmware updates in mind, even though they do show up in gnome-software's interface.
There's the security criterion:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_36_Final_Release_Criteria#Security_bugs
But that only applies to security bugs in our software, not to bugs which prevent applying security fixes in firmware.

Did I overlook something?

Discussed during the 2022-02-28 blocker review meeting: [0]

The decision to delay the classification of this as a blocker bug was made as there was some support in principle for this being a blocker, but also some opposition, and it doesn't obviously violate the existing criteria. We will ask how software updates are affected if a firmware update is queued but fails (if the software update also does not happen in this case, that could be a blocker issue). Someone may also choose to propose specific criteria for firmware updates.

[0] https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-blocker-review/2022-02-28/f36-blocker-review.2022-02-28-17.00.txt

Gross. If we show the notification for the update, the update should work. If pressed to stretch an existing criteria to fix this, I would say showing a notification for an update that cannot be applied violates "The displayed state of software or software sources must not differ from their actual state." portion of the Installing, removing and updating software criteria mentioned above, as notifying an update is available implies to me the updater is in a state where it can perform the update mentioned, which is not the case here.

FinalBlocker +1

Discussed during the 2022-03-07 blocker review meeting: [0]

The decision to delay the classification of this as a blocker bug was made as there hasn't been much movement on this from last week (info about how this affects software updates is not yet provided), so we will delay the decision again.

[0] https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-blocker-review/2022-03-07/f36-blocker-review.2022-03-07-17.01.txt

So I chased up all the linked discussions, and this seems to apply exclusively to Lenovo machines. Based on that, I change my vote, and instead suggest we note this in common bugs.

FinalBlocker -1

AGREED RejectedFinalBlocker

Discussed during the 2022-03-14 blocker review meeting: [0]

The decision to classify this bug as a "RejectedBlocker (Final)" was made as this is a sad bug for affected owners, but firmware update functionality is not covered in the release criteria, and nothing that is covered in the criteria is broken by this bug.

[0] https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-blocker-review/2022-03-14/f36-blocker-review.2022-03-14-16.01.txt

The following votes have been closed:

• Rejected FinalBlocker (+0, 0, -1)
  • -1 by nielsenb

Release F36 is no longer tracked by BlockerBugs, closing this ticket.