The KeePassXC kerfuffle

Posted May 23, 2024 16:33 UTC (Thu) by lunaryorn (subscriber, #111088)
Parent article: The KeePassXC kerfuffle

No maintainer should be thrown to the fire for screwing up in public.

But when you screw up (at least from an upstream standpoint), and then don't say sorry, but instead firmly and somewhat arrogantly assert your stance is right and proceed to call parts of the (at this point already quite angry) upstream "crap", you... kinda had it coming I guess.

The KeePassXC kerfuffle

Posted May 24, 2024 10:47 UTC (Fri) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958) [Link] (5 responses)

The problem here is that not everybody thinks he "screwed up" at all.

The KeePassXC kerfuffle

Posted May 24, 2024 12:37 UTC (Fri) by lunaryorn (subscriber, #111088) [Link] (4 responses)

I wasn't talking about everybody, but specifically about upstream's standpoint ;)

I think we can agree that upstream believes that the downstream maintainer screwed up, at least to some degree, can't we? Upstream wouldn't have sternly asked for a revert otherwise, would they?

Now, my point isn't whether upstream is right or wrong here, or whether the changes downstream made are right or wrong. I for my part don't care much, and I'm not affected. I don't use Debian.

My point is only the peculiar response of the downstream maintainer after being asked to revert. Whether you're right or wrong factually, that's just not a particularly respectful way to interact with your upstream...

The KeePassXC kerfuffle

Posted May 24, 2024 14:45 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (3 responses)

> My point is only the peculiar response of the downstream maintainer after being asked to revert. Whether you're right or wrong factually, that's just not a particularly respectful way to interact with your upstream...

The problem with upstream's request is that the downstream maintainer used an upstream-supplied-and-supported build configuration.

....If upstream had a problem with that configuration, they shouldn't have provided it to begin with.

The KeePassXC kerfuffle

Posted May 24, 2024 15:39 UTC (Fri) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]

Yeah, a config that's provided for special uses.

If you consciously use that configuration then you know what you're doing. In particular you know not to complain to Upstream when your browser integration button is missing.

A minimal config that'd make sense in this context would pop up a message that you need to install the full version instead.

The KeePassXC kerfuffle

Posted May 24, 2024 16:23 UTC (Fri) by lunaryorn (subscriber, #111088) [Link] (1 responses)

As I said, my point's not about who's right or wrong here, or whether upstream's request to revert was justified or not.

My point is that I find the response of the downstream maintainer pretty rude and disrespectful. Even if they were undoubtedly right and correct, it's still not okay to call upstream "crap", and being entirely unsympathetic to upstream's issues with their decision certainly didn't help.

See, if they had just said "I'm sorry that this change of mine ended up on your issue tracker. I still would like to change the default build configuration, but let's perhaps talk about how we can handle this transition together without causing issues to upstream?" we probably wouldn't have this article on LWN. But they didn't, so here we are...

The KeePassXC kerfuffle

Posted May 24, 2024 17:09 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> My point is that I find the response of the downstream maintainer pretty rude and disrespectful.

The disrespect went in both directions, and from each party's point of view, was justifiable.

And it's very easy to stand on the sidelines and say "you should do better" when you're not the one(s) under attack.

It seems to me the only ones "wrong" here are the actual end-users.