Bug#876184: pdfsam: Disable donation window, news, and ads for premiun features

[Markus Koschany]

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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