How to handle KDE not respecting YOUR distros requirements?

[Martin Steigerwald]

On Samstag, 26. März 2016 01:41:10 CET Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> > As an aside - if KDE is prepared to be more flexible in order to
> > support *BSD distributions, where does this attitude that all Linux
> > distributions should conform to a template of KDE's choosing come
> > from? It seems to me to be a double standard that seems to be lacking
> > an anchor in common sense as far as I can parse.
> 
> From what I've been told, the BSDs are actively working on offering 
> compatibility layers for missing things like logind instead of saying
> "[BSD]  does not have a steenking systemd". Why can't Slackware do the
> same?

Maybe due to lack of resources, i.e. people doing it?

There is still the thing that this means people accept that systemd people set 
the standard. Maybe even unilaterally without asking what people need.

OTOH if its a sane standard and if it works nicely I see no issues with re-
implementing is where people cannot or do not want to use systemd.

And of course there is still the issue that logind means you need to use 
systemd as well and this upstream policy in my eyes questionable as well.

Also what amount of adaption work do you want to put to downstream users of 
Plasma? When is a downstream user important enough to support it out of the 
box.

I bet you do not intend to request having logind API available on Windows or 
on Mac OS X for example? And you neither ask Microsoft nor Apple to implement 
it for you? There you support other ways out of the box, there upstream adapts 
to the platform and not the other way around.

But then, you have people doing that, and so this is the invitation for anyone 
who does not want to use systemd on Linux or BSD to be such an upstream 
developer caring about providing out of the box support for non systemd Unix 
systems. Cause as far as I gathered you currently simply do not have any 
people taking care of this.

So this is just about someone actually doing it. You allow it as much as I 
gathered. So if someone steps up there can be support.

I just wanted to point out that "you downstream have to adapt" can send a 
message of arrogance like "you are not important enough for us to adapt to 
you" that is not very well received and basically finger points the 
responsibility to someone else. I´d carefully take care of sending a different 
message than that which can be "we would like to support you, but we don´t 
have any people using your distro who like to work with us upstream to develop 
and test what is needed". So it would start with actually listening to the 
needs of the downstream and taking them as given, as having good reasons, 
taking them serious and then work from there. So are there any slackware 
people on this list?

Also an official decision on what platforms you support out of the box can at 
least give some clarification about what to expect. Like:

If its an unix we expect to have systemd like logind API available, unless you 
help us to implement support for something else.

with a short reasoning would be a clear message.

Thanks,
-- 
Martin