How to handle KDE not respecting YOUR distros requirements?

[Heinz Wiesinger]

On Friday 25 March 2016 17:20:56 Martin Graesslin wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I stumbled over a blog post by a KDE distro packager and want to do a
> verbatim quote of one section:
> "[] does not have a steenking systemd you crazy KDE developer"
> 
> I can see there some frustration about Plasma requiring systemd and the
> distro not wanting that. First of all: that's not the case, we don't have
> any dependency on systemd. We have a few runtime dependencies to logind's
> dbus interface (like in this case) and are extremely open to other
> solutions. For example the repository in question also supports
> consolekit2.

Just to make this clear, we (Slackware) are aware. But naming of the DBUS 
interfaces can cause some confusion so people may not make the logind <-> 
ConsoleKit2 connection immediately. Not an excuse, just an explanation 
attempt.

> Now what's wrong with the approach in the blog post:
> 1. It creates an us vs. them! Let's not do that, let's work together to
> solve problems. E.g. by raising concerns on this mailing list

I fully agree with you here. But, this was pre-discussion. It was just a 
package maintainer voicing surprise on a blog about something he did not 
expect. Next steps would have been research, and if no solution was to be 
found we would then obviously take it to either the bugtracker or the mailing 
list.

> 2. Insults don't help your case! If you call devs crazy you don't have to be
> surprised that your distro's use case will be ignored. After all I'm crazy
> ;-) Also it doesn't support your wish to have more supported than logind.
> Reactions like that just manifest the feeling that the non-systemd people
> are a crowd of people which cannot do anything except yelling. Sorry to be
> that blunt.

I do understand where you're coming from. And I know Eric is not making it 
easy on you ;) Just please don't read more into this statement than there is.

> 3. If your distro doesn't follow what 99 % of all other distros do, don't
> expect we write code for it!

We don't. We do expect you however to respect the issues we're having with 
your software and we do expect you to help us in finding solutions. Together.
Note, "finding" is not the same as "implementing". But stating that "I'm using 
logind. If you want to use something else, figure it out" just creates an us 
vs. them. Let's not do that. ;)

> But please don't expect that new code will consider anything than what is
> used by the vast majority of our users.

See, this is where as a developer I have to disagree. I expect new code to 
support everything that is already supported elsewhere in the stack, even if 
you personally don't run it. At the very least there should be a call for 
action *before* the new code lands so other people can help out in providing 
support for those minority cases. Otherwise this is just a backhanded way of 
kicking them out.

Grs,
Heinz
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