Control: tags -1 wontfix Am 19.09.2017 um 13:05 schrieb Michael Weghorn: > Package: pdfsam > Version: 3.3.2-2 > Severity: wishlist > > Dear Maintainer, > > PDFsam provides the possibility to enable or disable > certain "features" in its options. > > At the moment, the following functionality is enabled > by default: > > * "Show donation window" > * "Check for news at startup" > * "Show premium features" > > In my opinion, it would be better to have those options > disabled by default. > (Currently, there is already a patch that disables > the check for updates at startup.) > > Of course, this is a "matter of taste", so please feel free > to close this bug as invalid in case you see that differently.
Hello, I almost expected such a bug report. I have thought about this myself and the current behavior is intentional. tl;dr This is a wontfix bug for me. I will keep it open because I believe there will be other people who will come up with a similar request in the future. As you said this is a "matter of taste". I believe all of these features can be easily disabled in the settings menu. There is no need for Debian to diverge from upstream. Here is the long version: We disable checks for updates in Debian packages because they are not useful for our users and might even confuse them or break our packages. We try to produce a coherent experience across the distribution and a lot of work goes into seamlessly integrating a specific piece of software that is fully DFSG compliant, usable, buildable with only packages from Debian main and installable with Debian's system tools. By using Debian packages stable users will always get a well tested and free (as in freedom) software package which also receives security support for at least five years. We cannot guarantee the same for software packages which are directly downloaded from upstream without further checks. They are not integrated into Debian and might be affected by security, freedom or other issues. We don't know because we can't control it. Hence upstream updates are disabled by default because we have tools like apt, dpkg, unattended-upgrades, the Gnome Software Center, Synaptic, etc pp. which can help keeping a system up-to-date. Using upstream's update mechanism together with Debian's can affect the user experience negatively and thus we recommend either to use the Debian package OR the upstream package (if it exists) but not both at the same time (unless this use case is specifically supported by the maintainer which is not true for PDFsam) * "Show donation window" ======================== In my opinion the other features are fundamentally different from what I have explained above. They won't mess up your system or break the Debian package, they are either notifications or a means to ask the user to help supporting the future development of the software. Free software does not have to be gratis and software developers also need money to pay their bills. It is not unethical to ask for donations. It is one way to fund or support a free software project and that's fine for me. * "Check for news at startup" ============================= Some people will claim this is a privacy issue. I disagree. It is a way to get in contact with users and as long as this feature can be easily disabled I don't have any problems with it. * "Show premium features" ========================= Some people will claim this is unethical because those "premium features" may not be free software. Whilst true this is not an issue for PDFsam because the application itself is free and you don't have to buy or use those extra features. This feature is just a hint or notification to inform users that they can buy something extra but they don't have to. This notification can be easily disabled. I don't find it obtrusive and I want let the user decide if she needs it or not. I hope that clarifies my point of view a little Regards, Markus
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