Comment 68 for bug 390508

@Sebastien

The issue here isn't anyone trying to tell the devs how to develop their software. The notify-osd package intentionally ignores part of the desktop notification spec, yet still claims to be compliant. It breaks packages around it (ie: notify-send) and forces developers to 'Ubuntu'ize' their applications / scripts.

Sure, everyone can ignore notify-osd and develop against packages like notification-daemon that don't intentionally ignore the spec, but it's impossible for anyone that develops for linux to ignore anything Ubuntu uses by default.

I like Ubuntu. I use it on a lot of machines. I think it's done amazing things for linux and the open source community. However, I don't think it benefits anyone to have the most popular linux distribution behaving in a way that detriments interoperability.

Telling anyone that complains to fork notify-osd is akin to giving them the middle finger and telling them to get lost. It's not going to change anything if Ubuntu is packaging (a broken) notify-osd. What do you think the chances are that Ubuntu would package a forked version of notify-osd?

Also, someone tried to create a brainstorm topic where this debate could continue, but it was rejected. I agree the bug tracker isn't the place for this discussion, but there doesn't appear to be anywhere else for people to voice their opinions.