GNOME Calendar developer Hari Rana has publicly revisited a months-old dispute with Linux Mint, accusing the distribution of harming upstream projects by shipping outdated and modified software while continuing to use upstream branding and support links.
In a strongly worded blog post, Rana described Linux Mint as a “hostile distribution” and provided his account of a GitLab discussion that began back in September 2025 and was closed several months later.
The initial request concerned the GNOME Calendar packages distributed by Linux Mint. Rana said the upstream project no longer supported any of the versions held back by Mint and asked the distribution to remove or replace links pointing to GNOME Calendar, particularly its support links. Additionally, he also requested that Mint change the application’s icon and branding.
According to Rana, users of these older packages sometimes report problems directly to GNOME Calendar. Upstream developers then spend time investigating issues that may already be fixed in newer releases or may be caused by downstream patches and packaging decisions.
The branding request, however, made the dispute more complicated. Removing upstream support links from an unsupported package is a practical measure. Demanding that the application also receive a new name or icon raises a separate question about how freely licensed software may be modified and redistributed.
Linux Mint founder Clement Lefebvre explained during the discussion that Mint’s package versions are connected to the Ubuntu and Debian releases on which Linux Mint and LMDE are based. Removing Mint’s package would therefore not necessarily give users a newer GNOME Calendar version, as the same older release could still come from the underlying distribution.
Unfortunately, the conversation quickly became confrontational to the point where Lefebvre replied, “If you don’t care, then neither do we,” apparently referring to Rana’s dismissal of Mint’s downstream constraints.
Lately, Lefebvre closed the GitLab issue, arguing that upstream appeared to want tight control over how its software was distributed.
“Upstream wants tight control over the distribution of its software. This probably requires GNOME Calendar to move away from free licenses. Closing since this an upstream consideration.”
The practical solution would have been relatively simple: Linux Mint could replace the upstream support links with its own and make it clear that reports concerning its packaged version should first go through Mint’s support channels. That would reduce the burden on GNOME Calendar without requiring the application to be renamed.
Instead, the discussion ended with both sides talking past each other. Mint treated the request largely as an attempt to control redistribution, while Rana treated Mint’s resistance as proof that the distribution was exploiting upstream developers.
In any case, however, the underlying problem is real. Stable, long-term-support distros often continue to ship application releases long after upstream developers have stopped maintaining them. Users may not understand where responsibility for those builds lies, especially when the software still points them toward the original project.
For additional details, see the full discussion here.
I think the problem with Mint is they are using Cinnamon which feels very outdated and slow, sure it uses less memory than KDE, but it feels slow on interaction and doesn’t look very good. Fonts and readability look very bad on it.
The Gnome Calendar they use is outdated, but a lot of components in Mint are outdated too. If they have a problem with it they should just ship Mint with a different Calendar program instead. I can’t wait for Cinnamon to become a modern DE, but I doubt I will ever see it.
There’s literally on this website full Wayland support coming for the next iteration of Cinnamon. The “outdated” stuff are usually things that don’t link to Wayland, because Gnome went all in on wayland so much so that they put most of their libraries with dependencies that no longer supported X11. That’s their right to do, but it left the Cinnamon fork in a lurch until Wayland support could be added.
It’s not like you can click your heels and get Wayland (XFCE’s feature set can’t even be ported because Wayland doesn’t do what X11 handles currently.) It’s not an indictment, it’s a statement of reality.
I like Cinnamon. I am a fan of X11. I choose Mint because it’s dead simple to use and gets out of my way (and doesn’t use SNAPs).
IMO the upstream does not simply want their gnome calendar in Mint at all, they don’t want to find a solution, meet at the middle they just dont want “Linux Mint” specially to use gnome calandar.
https://gitlab.com/linuxmint/pins/mint/gnome-calendar/-/work_items/1
By reading this ticket I have a clear understanding of the issue. Clement Lefebvre Linux mint lead developer have been very resonable, linux mint does not decicisively choose the older packages, packages in linux mint comes from ubutntu. Its a shame to see this divide between upstream and downstream still after all this long long. This division is also no 1 reason why linux is not mainstream. They could have easily come to a middle ground if Hari Rana the gnome calendar developer was a bit reasonable. I’m just disapointed.
Mint , in case of Gnome, represents the old style where the deskop keeps in the background if I got it right.
problem with going forward is that it often turns out to be backwards.
Dont copy WillInstallNeedlessSoftwareOverWholeSystem. personally I use Linux to get away from them 😉
I took the time to read the whole discussion. This article doesn’t do it justice. It’s between some 24 year old, that has no idea how the world works, and the project lead of one of the most popular Linux distributions.
The whole premise is absurd. Stable distributions like Debian has been around for decades and they have always shipped outdated software, to be able to provide stability. Now there’s some kid that has volunteered to maintain the GNOME Calendar and thinks that gives them the power to dictate how their software is distributed. It’s ridiculous.
This ageism really shows how bitter old man you are. Hari’s age is completely irrelevant in this discussion and you only mention it because you have no idea what you’re saying. They did much more for open source than you and at a much younger age.
„ to be able to provide stability”
And Mint clearly FAILED at that. If it provided stability then Hari wouldn’t be flooded with Mint-specific bug reports, which this whole discussion is about. And nobody is asking them to STOP providing broken old software to their users, just to remove Gnome branding, since it hurts the upstream developers, who actually make the software that you’re using
You know ageism is a great defense when you’re talking about like physical things and the difference between someone going to work force being able to hold a job and some young punk coming up and stealing their job by just being more efficient and easier.
I don’t think this is a case of ageism this is a case of a young guy not having the years of experience and understanding of the community that he is a part of.
You can be an amazing software engineer and you can do amazing things in a field that doesn’t mean that you should be a project leader. I don’t know the ins and outs of this but by the looks of it I would argue similarly to the other poster that his age is actually an issue.
He is coming at this too cocky with no consideration of the rest of the open source community almost at all. As many others have pointed out this is not some random weird occurrence that Linux mint is doing this is a pretty normal part of software development. The calendar project lead has overstepped and has tried to double down on it.
We can either put that to age and say he hasn’t had the time to learn and will grow to be a better project lead in time or if this is what you prefer we can just say that he’s an asshole who doesn’t understand the community that he’s a part of and shouldn’t be a project lead because he has no ability to grow and learn because he’s perfect as he is as a 24-year-old man right?
If you have arguments then you can always state them without mentioning someone’s age, race, orientation, nationality etc. I very much despise it. Being old doesn’t automatically give you a better understanding.
I have no horses in this race, I am not associated with Gnome or Mint and I even use KDE lately. I’ve read that discussion on github and blog post by Hari and I absolutely disagree with your take.
I’m 36 years old (because that’s important for some reason) and it’s not Hari who doesn’t understand the open source community here, it’s Mint.
Upstream is the one making software, it does often volunteer and unpaid job.
It was stated very clearly that upstream gets a lot of bug reports specifically from Linux Mint users, against unsupported and modified version of their software. Both on their tracker and their social media. The way Mint provided their software directly hurts upstream. All while they had zero items on their own tracker.
And it really doesn’t matter who is at fault here, if Mint’s down patches, if Ubuntu or Debian.
Mint users are the ones who make upstream’s work harder and this is what it’s about.
And while there is technically nothing in the license that prevents Mint from shipping broken Gnome software and letting volunteers deal with the fallout, it’s against the unwritten rules of the very open source community. Gnome isn’t responsible for what Mint ships.
And writing a filter in the tracker doesn’t solve the social media problem and the tarnish on Gnome’s reputation.
It seemed kinder to attribute their behaviour to inexperience, than to dismiss them as a hopeless asshole. Most people grow with age and even the obnoxious ones often realise that they will get nowhere with their bad attitude and tone it down as they get older. It’s becoming increasingly common that people ruin their brains with drugs and stop developing. It’s also quite common that people refuse to grow up, because they want to lead a selfish life and not take on any responsibility. So it is quite possible that we are experiencing peak Hari, but it seems kinder and more constructive to suggest that they can grow and improve.
Even at your ripe old age, you don’t seem to have a better understanding of Linux distributions and the open source community than Hari, so clearly age isn’t the only factor. Linux Mint is the most recommended distribution to beginners. People with no Linux experience that just want to escape Windows or have a supported operating system on their old laptop often start with Linux Mint. These users are trying to be helpful by reporting bugs and may not understand that they’re running an old version and that they can get a newer version where it’s already fixed.
Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian. While I expect that there’s a fair amount of beginners starting with Ubuntu (I did, two decades ago.), Debian is almost exclusively used by experienced users or indirectly through another distribution. Both of these have the exact same problem of shipping outdated software as Linux Mint. They are literally on the same version of GNOME Calendar as Linux Mint. It’s just that their communities are less inclined to report bugs. If anything, it sounds like Linux Mint has a very healthy and active community. That this would be a reason to ban them from shipping GNOME Calendar is absurd.
The reasonable thing to do is to have a versioned link in GNOME Calendar, so that when they try to report the bug, they will be warned that they are using an old version from 2 years ago and should update to the latest version and only report the bug if it can be reproduced there. Instead Hari chose the unreasonable path of trying to force Linux Mint to not ship GNOME Calendar. How do you not see how unhinged that is? To make it worse, Hari’s attitude was awful and he made no attempt to work with Linux Mint to find a compromise. Anything less than rebranding the app and removing the links was unacceptable.
I suspect, at 36, Hari will be a lot more reasonable and diplomatic.
Bug reports should have the version, and our of support versions can just be immediately closed.
Even an automated response could be put on to it just explaining that this ticket was closed due to being an unsupported version if on Linux mentor and other distribution that is still using this please contact your distribution for support
Flatpak is not without issues either, e.g. Flatpak is considering a major systemd requirement. Regardless, I don’t think this solves the quick turn-around problem for the distro, or the user for that matter. Maybe, if GNOME cares, GNOME should consider LTS versions, like the linux kernel does?
GNOME had a great run! I enjoyed using this DE in the past for its simplicity (not for sacrificing functionality for the sake of “simplicity”). Good thing Valve ditched GNOME and moved to KDE. As for Linux Mint, don’t even know where to start. Why didn’t they stick to Debian instead of Ubuntu LTS? lol
GNOME doesn’t need an Ubuntu-style LTS version. The software cycle is about moving forward, not stagnating. Look at the damage Ubuntu and your LTS experiment did to the Linux ecosystem. The Mint team simply needs to edit the support links instead of sending users to upstream. Or, in the best-case scenario, migrate to Flatpak and shift support directly to the application developers.
LTS isn’t an experiment. It’s a choice. This whole “new shiny” bit from the younger folks miss the point of LTS entirely. The reason I used Debian for many years was it was stable. Rolling releases are notoriously buggy and can be a pain to repair when you simply want a stable release that works.
Ubuntu isn’t really like Debian in that regard, but their LTS is nice and solid.
I use Mint 22.3. The version of GNOME Calendar that ships with the distro is 46.1. I think a simple solution would be to replace the .deb package with a Flatpak. Flathub has version 50.0 of GNOME Calendar. I’m guessing that Mint doesn’t want to go down this road (including Flatpaks as part of the basic distro).
Then you will have a few people complaining about how bad flatpak is and how it slows down there ancient pc like all the other nut jobs out there that think various package formats are evil. I use both flatpaks and snaps and never have any issues yet there are people who complain about both. Heck I also have no issues with using a deb or a appimage if needed since i’m not picky.