New article, although this one is a controversial one based on the situation of GNOME Calendar and Linux Mint. I present to you: How far would hostile distributions go to hurt application developers?
https://tesk.page/2026/07/18/how-far-would-hostile-distributions-go-to-hurt-upstream/
@TheEvilSkeleton It makes me sad seeing that #linuxmint has such package maintainer.
@TheEvilSkeleton "You chose the wrong license" but they conveniently always miss the "this program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose" part.
@TheEvilSkeleton naming of stuff that's not trademarked has always been an issue on FOSS licenses. you just have to hope for good will. :(
@TheEvilSkeleton Out of curiosity - Is it that users of Ubuntu and Debian just do not show up in your bugtracker with bugs of outdated versions? You write that they don't bother you, but I don't think it's clear if this is what that entails. And technically they should have all the same issues as Mint does.
@TheEvilSkeleton whewwww that's a lot of therapy speak. gosh I've seen so much drama about gnome, I wouldnt blame distros for removing their packages altogether.
would be some work for the distro to find alternatives, but hopefully healthier for both parties longterm 🫂
besides, niche communities tend to step in and fill the void - motivated users find ways to run unsupported software 👍
Speaking as a know nothing I shall be checking out Debian on one of my spare Thinkpads prior to moving house.
Anecdote not included.
@TheEvilSkeleton I disagree with a lot of what's in this blog post (for example, when a Mint user running a distro from *2022* files an upstream bug in *2026*, that's on the user - not on Mint). However, the issue of branding and bug reports on outdated software isn't going away, and I wish build systems included by default some kind of rebranding/link modification flag.
Chrome/chromium does this in their build system, but it's custom and I feel like cmake and others should make it A Thing.
Can't the bugtracker just filter reports send by old versions and LTS?
Isn't Upstream failing at bug triage?
@paninodesu are you going to work on that? And how are you going to deal with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem ?
@paninodesu also, about this GIF, if you are annoyed by my refusal to take on abuse from downstreams, feel free to unfollow or block me
@Andres4NY allow me to remind you that Chromium is backed by a corporation. Also, Chromium is designed to be rebrandable. GNOME Calendar is designed for GNOME. Why would we introduce and support more features?
> when a Mint user running a distro from 2022 files an upstream bug in 2026
Which bug report are you referring to?
@pomagarnet what is "therapy speak" and what makes it like that?
@TheEvilSkeleton I understand that, I'm not talking about Calendar adding the features. I'm talking about build systems in general adding the feature, so that downstream users of packages that makes use of said build systems could simply add `--rebrand foo-calendar https://distro/foo-calendar` during the build to override various upstream strings and urls.
@TheEvilSkeleton Apologies, I misspoke about that - I was thinking Mint 22 was similar versioning as Ubuntu (eg, released in 2022), rather than Mint 22 being based on Ubuntu from 2024.
@Isofruit that's correct.
I realized that I failed to express that some versions of Linux Mint and Ubuntu share the same gnome-calendar package. The difference between the two is that Ubuntu users will report bugs to Ubuntu (supposedly), whereas Linux Mint users will report them to upstream. Even if they both share the same technical bugs, this is less of a technical issue but more of an issue with Linux Mint failing to respect the distribution model.
@TheEvilSkeleton
Quick question/suggestion:
Can we get a list of the big distributions that could be considered hostile in this case? If not, then... Which distros can be directly considered as hostile?
@AlanyG21 Linux Mint, Fedora, and Manjaro come to mind currently
@TheEvilSkeleton I just wish distros wouldn't even bother. Like, why is Mint building their own version version of Gnome Calendar when there's an upstream-maintained version of the application on Flathub? They could just preinstall the Flathub version and all of these issues with downstream repackages go away. It's not viable for every application (for now) but so many problems could just be solved if distros got comfortable with not shipping every package under the sun.
@TheEvilSkeleton Interesting article. This is the first time I've seen herring used as a verb.
@TheEvilSkeleton Did you really tell me to fix it for you?
I don't know how bug reports works for Gnome, it's a decade maybe since I last used Gnome, but here when I want to report a bug on some program or KDE component I have to fill a form.
Beyond the "product", this form asks on which component of the product the problem is, the exact version of the product, what platform and OS version I'm using, what is the severity of the problem, plus all the other descriptions I can give.
@TheEvilSkeleton
As an aside, not all versions of Ubuntu even install GNOME Calendar (ubuntu-desktop-minimal doesn't).
I don't think Ubuntu installs the gnome (DE) metapackage by default either (in universe section).
And then a further proportion of Ubuntu users who might file a bug report understand their GNOME experience has been somewhat customised by Canonical anyway, and their expectation is on Ubuntu to package things to work on the distro.
Plus Bugs referencing bugs.launchpad.net.
> I want to report a bug on some program or KDE component I have to fill a form
This will alienate tons of people, including myself. I stopped reporting bugs to KDE because Bugzilla is extremely difficult to use, and I never know which components to report to. Same reason why I never report bugs to LibreOffice and Firefox.
And yes, I do want you to fix it for us. You'll come realize that this is not fixable upstream if you want to maintain something that is easy for newcomers to report.
@TheEvilSkeleton@treehouse.systems
what percent of bug reports you get is invalid reports by mint users
@m I have no idea to be honest. Why does that matter?
@TheEvilSkeleton something funny, but maybe you wouldn't like to know, I have to wonder...
@paninodesu you know, I would appreciate if you don't speak in riddles
@TheEvilSkeleton If this is the core problem, wouldn't for such an issue it already suffice if they just swapped out the issue-tracker links on the app as well as the app-store?
Though I'm not sure even that could fix it. I've been looking a little bit on what differences between Mint and Ubuntu it could be and I'm coming up short. Both link to the gnome bugtracker. Both have official debug guides that explicitly do not lead upstream.
@TheEvilSkeleton While I feel for your situation, I’m sure a lot of developers are in a similar boat, it doesn’t seem like you are closer to having your needs met, and have done violence. I recommend reading Marshall Rosenberg’s book, A Language of Life.
@thankfulmachine please read the article carefully:
> you have two choices:
>
> - You kindly ask, and nothing happens apart from your own time and energy getting wasted for a considerable amount of time, with constant red herring or silence.
> - You start acting like a ‘dick’, and now they use this as an excuse to no longer communicate with you, all the while still refusing to address the underlying issue.
@TheEvilSkeleton This is so strange. As someone who actually does work on packaging GUI stuff for a distro, the GNOME Calendar issue with Linux Mint reads like a textbook "do not do this for any reason at all" situation for a packager. Shipping old software is one thing, but then *also* shipping it broken and refusing to do much of anything about it and then *also also* getting defensive when probed about it and then blaming the developers is just gross.
This article itself is just inflammatory, again pointing fingers at LM which is not helpful.
Note linuxmint is not innocent either, they definitely messed up by packaging gnome-calendar in this state, but I feel if the discussion started by clearly stating the problem (people reporting long solved bugs in the wrong place, which is hurting upstream) and not pointing fingers all the time the outcome probably would've changed significantly.
But instead there was a lot of miscommunication, both from your side and their side, miscommunication that could have definitely been avoided, which is sad to see.
@fun to be fair, I did want a productive discussion, but if you looked at the first issue, the first thing the packager did is dodge the entire concern and jump straight to something else.
As for "it just asked for rebranding everything without any specific reason.", I don't think that would have helped for Mint itself, because the packager was already aware of it for years. I do admit that would have definitely helped from an outsider's perspective.
As I stated in the article, there were several discussions about this prior to the issue, so it wasn't a surprise to the packager.
@fun yeah, I definitely do agree with everything, except some parts which I address here: https://social.treehouse.systems/@TheEvilSkeleton/116949185516023452
RT: https://social.treehouse.systems/users/TheEvilSkeleton/statuses/116949185516023452
@KekunPlazas @TheEvilSkeleton
Uncooperative downstreams like Linux Mint disregard section 2a of the GPLv2 (section 5a in GPLv3) that says divergent versions should be clearly marked as such ("You must cause the modified [stuff] to carry prominent notices stating that you changed [the stuff]") to avoid reputational harm to the upstream maintainers.
Then they act all surprised when we ask them to take our brand off their package, and they claim we don't understand FLOSS.
@TheEvilSkeleton @fun Rebranding stuff or heavily modifying a project's source code is nothing new to Mint.
Again, from what I noticed, most people are poorly informed about what upstreams can do. An upstream has no control over the repositories of a distro so the upstream author cannot do much about the bugs because its the responsibility of the distro.
I don't even understand the backlash against you because its a downstream maintained package now.
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In general, while I do appreciate that a lot of developers and news outlets are on my side on this, I think there is one thing I believe that we get fundamentally wrong: the issue is not LTS, and I would argue that LTS actually has nothing to do with this, as it is just a technical detail.
In my opinion, this is inherently a downstream attitude problem. I believe the most brutal recent example was between Fedora and OBS Studio, where OBS Studio was ready to sue Fedora over misusing trademarks and later brushing it off. Fedora is not an LTS distribution, but it shared the same inherent attitude that (in this case) Linux Mint had.
@TheEvilSkeleton one day I'll have to write a blog post about how to get this right, and about hostile upstreams.
Hostile upstreams exist. Imposing weird CLAs on PRs, stale bots, force-pushing existing tags, pulling historical releases, publishing releases with questionable testing done, etc. Plenty I could scream about. Worst by far is, noone does proper dependency justification, and getting rid of a deeply embedded upstream is REALLY hard to do downstream even if we would want to. 1/?
@TheEvilSkeleton "It's not our fault Ubuntu told us to do it" meanwhile Ubuntu is literally like "Please consider filing a bug or asking a question via Launchpad before contacting the maintainer directly. [...] It should generally not be necessary for users to contact the original maintainer." https://packages.ubuntu.com/source/stonking/gnome-calendar
I've had my issues with the Mint people for a while now and I'm sorry they are like that. Not surprised though, sadly. Sending my appreciation to you.
@TheEvilSkeleton @Isofruit Ubuntu tells their users "Please consider filing a bug or asking a question via Launchpad before contacting the maintainer directly. [...] It should generally not be necessary for users to contact the original maintainer." https://packages.ubuntu.com/source/stonking/gnome-calendar
Calendar is in Ubuntu's "main" repo - these are all things maintained for the distribution by Canonical. They also have the off-by-default "universe" aka "the wide world of FOSS" which they do not maintain for the distro.
@TheEvilSkeleton for OBS I understood it was also a problem with licenses, and fedora policies over providing certain codecs. Although it was also communication because I didn't read this, it was my interpretation in between the lines.
@TheEvilSkeleton
At least I didn't see anybody defending Fedora and their right to ship broken software under OBS's trademark
@TheEvilSkeleton I disagree about you being rude in Mint's bug tracker. I read the whole thread, and you're not hostile in any message. This accusation—like all other "arguments" Lefebvre made—is a fabrication. He sounds like a proper idiot throwing strawmen around; this is calculated. You have been gaslit the whole way and actually kept your composure very nobly.
He did the usual abuser thing, making you feel guilt for simply demanding the abuse to stop. Do not accept accusations from abusers.
@TheEvilSkeleton question: is it not possible/easier just to close issues generated by an older version of the app?
I hear KDE is using bot to do this.
@TheEvilSkeleton@treehouse.systems well because if its one every thousand you are a person who is asocial and cares more about principle than human communication (while yourself having flaky principles w.r.t. choosing a foss license), and if its one every ten then youre a burnt out foss maintainer asking for a small favour from people who can greatly help you out but cant be fucked to do so
@m I don't know what to tell you besides I don't believe it's your call to judge what percentage of reports constitutes a burnout. Similarly, if someone is burned out or irritated over something that appears so mundane to me, it would be completely irresponsible of me to judge.
@TheEvilSkeleton@treehouse.systems
Sure, you may feel that way, I disagree.
Having this information does affect my opinion on your stance, so I asked for it.
Its your right to not answer my question, so I wont pry anymore :3
@m I mean my honest is as honest as possible: I don't know. I don't think any sane person would keep track of how many issues they get. I just went based on "ok, I've seen enough of the same issue, this is getting seriously annoying"
@fun then my answer to that is simple: stop pushing your (Mint) issues onto us
I went ahead and edited the article to include a section of Mint downgrading GTK4+libadwaita versions of GNOME Calendar back to GTK3: https://tesk.page/2026/07/18/how-far-would-hostile-distributions-go-to-hurt-upstream/#addendum-past-visual-and-behavioral-changes-to-calendar-while-retaining-the-brand
And edited again to demonstrate potential license violation: https://tesk.page/2026/07/18/how-far-would-hostile-distributions-go-to-hurt-upstream/#addendum-2-potential-license-violation
Hopefully the first addendum should provide more context to why we're so annoyed by the situation.
@TheEvilSkeleton didn’t know the GPL had this or had forgotten. it’s better than I thought. good to know. :)
@TheEvilSkeleton Like, I am not a fan of libadwaita and the general attitude towards theming within GNOME - as you know - but that doesn't mean I get to be an asshole. Properly fork the damn applications and make them work like you want to - theming, no CSD, whatever - instead of trying to ride the coattails of GNOME and profit from GNOME's name and marketing.