All of this brings me to GNOME Calendar and @linuxmint. For years, we've been dealing with users reporting issues about Linux Mint's package of GNOME Calendar to us, that were either never present or addressed releases ago.
Just a couple of examples:
There were a couple of discussions regarding this in the past, in chat, but none of it ended up being productive. Eventually, we got fed up by it and I opened issue #1 on Mint's package of GNOME Calendar — the first issue ever in their package's repository — asking them to remove all links pointing to upstream GNOME Calendar and rebranding the app. This had no response for 6 months, all the while we were still getting bug reports about Mint's broken package. @nekohayo eventually got fed up (again!) and pinged the packager. The packager replied with something completely unrelated and asked which modifications we did not like, completely ignoring our actual request. So, I just told him bluntly that we don't have the time to look through the code just to pinpoint specific issues, so I'll just loosely say "everything", and the only way for us to be happy is if they could rebrand and we can move on.
Then, the packager responds with something unrelated once again, ignoring the essence of my comment, and follows with a whataboutism — "As i said, 46 and 48 are used by millions of people right now in Ubuntu LTS and Debian Stable. Are you going to request Debian and Ubuntu stop shipping GNOME apps?" — in other words, "what about Ubuntu LTS and Debian Stable?" — as a bonus, twisting my words and going from GNOME Calendar to "GNOME apps".
So, once again, I reminded that this is not what the issue is about.
As a side note: no, never would we go after Debian or Ubuntu over this. If the distribution in question is doing its job properly by simply not bothering the people writing the software that they package, then why should we go after them? They are not the ones misleading users into opening in the wrong place, so there is no reason for us to be upset about. In this case, Linux Mint is leeching off of Debian, and pushing their responsibility onto us.
The packager then explains what to do, and redirects us to Debian to take down the package, essentially roping Debian into Linux Mint's problem — all the while completely ignoring the premise of this post. Sure, both Linux Mint and Debian's packages share the same source; however, this is just a technical detail. The actual problem, one that regularly affects us, is that Linux Mint users report issues to us, whereas Debian users report them to Debian.
So, I remind him bluntly that this is not our responsibility as an upstream to fix his problems.
He then suggests to incorporate code upstream to check if the user is running an outdated version or not. In other words, either phoning home, somehow keeping track of releases every 6 months, or something unrealistic.
I lose my patience and hostily tell him that we upstreams don't care about how distributions operate, and reminded, once again, that all we want is for them to rebrand. To which he replied with "If you don't care, then neither do we." — confirming that Linux Mint doesn't care about Debian or even itself as a distribution. Then says "probably requires GNOME Calendar to move away from free licenses" and locks the issue — once again, completely ignoring the essence of this entire issue.
Now they know what the problem is, and have refused to act on it by shoving their responsibilities onto us, but this time intentionally, because that should show upstream for hurting my feelings, never mind the fact that we are the ones doing the hard work, and they are making us do more work. This is the length some distributors will go to abuse people's generosity.
#MaintainerLife #Linux #GNOME #GNOMECalendar #FOSS #OpenSource #FreeSoftware
Jeff Fortin T. (風の庭園のNekohayo)
TheEvilSkeleton 🇮🇳 🏳️⚧️
Jonathan Kamens 86 47
Henrique Custódio
Auino back on Linux