A GNOME Calendar developer calls Linux Mint a "hostile downstream" for refusing to work with them

Published Jul 20, 2026, 1:49 AM EDT Simon is a Computer Science BSc graduate who has been writing about technology since 2014, and using Windows machines since 3.1. After working for an indie game studio and acting as the family's go-to technician for all computer issues, he found his passion for writing and decided to use his skill set to write about all things tech. Since beginning his writing career, he has written for many different publications such as WorldStart, Listverse, and MakeTechEasier. However, after finding his home at MakeUseOf in February 2019, he would eventually move on to its sister site, XDA, to bring the latest and greatest in Windows, Linux, and DIY electronics. Sign in to your XDA account Summary Linux Mint ships an outdated GNOME Calendar yet directs users to upstream, causing confusing bug reports. Mint refused rebranding/removing upstream links and closed the ticket, showing uncooperative downstream behavior. Upstream devs face a lose-lose: being polite stalls fixes, being harsh gets ignored, defending work can villainize them. We, and many Linux veterans, often recommend Linux Mint as the best distro for newcomers. However, it seems not everyone holds it in such high regard, as one GNOME Calendar developer has called it a "hostile downstream" for not co-operating with them. A GNOME Calendar developer claims Linux Mint isn't playing ball It's causing a lot of issues As spotted by Linuxiac, a developer for GNOME Calendar, Hari Rana, vented their frustrations about how Linux Mint was handling their app. While GNOME Calendar has received updates for some time now, Rana says that the Linux Mint developers haven't been updating it on their end. This is all well and fine, but the problem is that Linux Mint tells users to contact the GNOME Calendar developers if something goes wrong with it. As such, GNOME Calendar's maintainers receive confusing bug reports because the version on Linux Mint is quite a bit outdated now. To help alleviate the issue, Rana states they got in contact with Linux Mint, asking it to remove any links to GNOME Calendar's developers and to rebrand the app. After a back-and-forth, Linux Mint proved uncooperative and locked the ticket. Rana states that interactions like this are a "lose-lose" situation: Once they start packaging your software, they immediately burn their bridges implicitly. In order to show that they are ‘good’, they only pretend to care about the problem, and keep proposing ‘solutions’ that 1. have nothing to do with the underlying problem and 2. put on significantly more burden to upstream without putting an equal amount of effort themselves. Rana states that cases like this don't reach the public often because people who are maintaining these projects are usually indie developers who end up burning out over the problems and abandoning the project entirely. Rana rounds out their blog post by saying that upstream developers are in a lose-lose situation when handling hostile downstreams. If the developer acts kindly, they are placed on a near-eternal waiting list to get their problem solved. If the developer gets frustrated and acts rudely, downstreams will use that as an excuse to ignore the issue. Even worse, if an upstream legally muscles in to protect both their work and their maintainers, they risk being perceived as "the Nintendo of free software" and villainised.