I find the argument that is being made a bit problematic from a number of angles.
First of all, the Social Contract clause doesn't say what they claim it says. Clause 4 says Debian will be guided by user needs and place user interests first. That's a directive about Debian's priorities when making decisions, it is not a rule that any feature serving a third party's interests is forbidden. "Without user consent" is doing a lot of work here. A one-time, or even seasonable notification that can be dismissed isn't really an imposition on autonomy in any meaningful sense. You can dismiss it, disable it, or uninstall. Equating this with a consent violation is a bit of a stretch. Real autonomy violations involve things users can't control or weren't told about. A visible, dismissible notice is the opposite of that. SMPlayer's nag was a recurring, harder-to-dismiss prompt that the maintainer decided to patch out (if I recall correctly). That was a maintainer decision, not a TC ruling establishing a principle. Citing it as precedent for TC intervention conflates "a maintainer once patched something out" with "the project has ruled fundraising notifications violate the Social Contract." This looks like a disagreement with a maintainer's judgment call being escalated into a constitutional question, that doesn't seem to be what the TC is for. On 2026-05-12 04:24:46, Nilesh Patra wrote: > Hi, > > [ CCing a few relevant folks for my question ] > > Reading this bug report made me realize, it is kind of similar for riseup-vpn > package. > That displays a MOTD with a "please donate if you can" banner everytime one > runs the app. > > I've never got bug reports for it yet. Is that an actual problem? I'd feel > really bad > to remove it, and personally would not want to do it. > > I'm looking for advice here. > > Thanks! > > On 12/05/26 2:35 am, [email protected] wrote: >> To: [email protected] >> Package: tech-ctte >> Severity: serious >> Followup-For: Bug #1135385 >> X-Debbugs-Cc: [email protected], >> [email protected] >> >> I request the Debian Technical Committee intervene regarding Bug >> #1135385, concerning the default-enabled donation notification in >> gnome-control-center, currently dismissed as a duplicate of Bug >> #1120511. >> >> The maintainer, Jeremy Bícha, has declined to address the core issue, >> that a default-enabled fundraising notification violates Debian Social >> Contract Clause 4: "We will be guided by the needs of our users and >> free software community. We will place their interests first." >> >> This feature imposes an external agenda (GNOME Foundation fundraising) >> without user consent, undermining user autonomy and Debian’s ethical >> foundation. It is not a minor usability concern, but a policy and >> philosophical violation, analogous to Bug #964359 (SMPlayer donation >> nag), which was patched out due to reputational risk. >> >> The maintainer’s responses (closing as duplicate, telling users to >> run commands to disable the notification, etc), fails to engage with >> the ethical and policy dimensions. This constitutes a willful >> disregard of Debian’s stewardship principles. The issue leaves no >> remaining ambiguity and is a direct conflict between upstream agendas >> and Debian’s values. >> >> Per Debian Constitution §6.1.4, I ask the TC to: >> Overrule the maintainer’s decision to dismiss Bug #1135385 and >> to discontinue ignoring Bug #1120511. >> Require that the donation notification be either: >> Patched out of the Debian package, or >> Disabled by default with a clear, informed opt-in mechanism. >> Clarify that maintainers must consider Debian Social Contract >> violations as actionable, especially when upstream decisions conflict >> with user interests. >> Consider whether the maintainer’s continued refusal to address a >> documented policy violation constitutes an unambiguous failure of >> stewardship. >> >> References: >> Bug #1135385: https://bugs.debian.org/1135385 >> Bug #1120511: https://bugs.debian.org/1120511 >> Bug #964359 (SMPlayer): https://bugs.debian.org/964359 > -- micah
