Bug#626916: qtiplot asks for donations, opens browser or fails to start without internet connection

[Scott Howard]

Andreas & Gudjon, I'd appreciate your opinions on this. I'm replying
to both bug 626916 and 626915. They are caused by the same part of
code and require similar considerations.

Here's the code:

http://git.debian.org/?p=debian-science/packages/qtiplot.git;a=blob;f=qtiplot/src/core/ApplicationWindow.cpp#l15935


I think there are three issues at play here:

1) Asking for donations at each start-up
2) Open a browser after asking for donations at every start-up
3) failing to start if not connected to the internet (since it can't
send you to the donations page)

My thoughts:
1) The qtiplot developers are free to ask for donations. Since it is
their main source of income, I think it is fair for us to let them ask
users for donations. If someone would like to petition the main
author, Ion, about changing how he bothers his users to donate, please
contact him at upstream's site and ask him to change it. I'll respect
his opinion on this. I feel like changing this part of the code would
be akin to Canonical changing Banshee's Amazon revenue away from
GNOME.
2) While I feel qtiplot is free to ask for donations how they see fit,
opening an external browser after asking for donations on every load
is a bit extreme.
3) is clearly a bug and will be fixed in Debian (simply removing the
"exit(0);" line probably will fix it, then protect showDonationsPage()
with

if (hostInfo.error() == QHostInfo::NoError){ showDonationsPage() }

)


I believe we should keep (1) in whatever form Ion uses, fix (3), and
am unsure about what to do with (2). I'm trying to find precedent, and
all I can find is [1] where the Debian maintainer decided not to
change upstream's behavior (although it was less annoying than
qtiplot). So, for now, I'm thinking that (1) and (2) are "wontfix" and
something that should be debated upstream.



[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/azureus/+bug/434979