Remove Discord’s verified status

[Eonfge]

Over on the Flathub Discource, I started a debate related to the 'verified' status of commercial packages who don't get any upstream support or attention... In other words, it's about this Discord package.

https://discourse.flathub.org/t/make-the-verified-status-more-strict-i-e-remove-discords-verified-status/5385

I welcome you all to join the discussion

[cassidyjames]

I commented a bit more verbosely on the thread, but I'll leave some shorter thoughts here.

Discord have just actively taken an interest in working on and improving the Flatpak. Transitioning a community-submitted and -maintained manifest for a proprietary app to something that Discord themselves want to get behind and promote has some growing pains, but we've just taken our first steps. I think it's wildly premature—and would greatly damage our image and relationship with ISVs—to just turn around and say "remove verification because we still have work to do."

For example, you mention not being able to integrate certain library fixes. If this Flatpak has their blessing and is ultimately under their control, that should remove that barrier. Longer-term the goal should be to have Discord build the Flatpak out as part of their regular build and release process; they now have a space where they can move in that direction since they have ownership over their app ID. I know several Discord employees are already using the Flatpak, and they’re excited to move forward to improve it; let's work together on a way forward instead of backwards.

[guihkx]

Is this still a relevant subject these days?

I became a maintainer of this package a few days ago, and I haven’t seen any Discord employees working directly on it.

However, I did notice that Discord has been releasing stable builds for Linux much more frequently in recent times.

In fact, their latest stable release (0.0.70) already includes Electron 32.0.0, which is also the latest stable release they have. This is something I never saw happen in the past. Discord was always many versions behind.

And given that 99% of the bugs reported here were actually caused by the ancient Electron version they were shipping, I'd say that's a pretty significant improvement.

[lionirdeadman]

Personally speaking, I don't feel great about the verified status.

It personally made me feel more uneasy about working on the package as I felt that changing things would now reflect on Discord's image and I did not and do not have any paths to actually collaborate with any Discord developers.

While there seems to have been an intention from Discord to work on the flatpak, it seems to have never materialized. I don't really like the idea that Discord can pass off volunteer work as their own and I don't like the idea that people think Discord developers actually have input on this package's maintenance (which they clearly do not).

[WindFreaker]

The issue that has broken the file chooser portal proves Discord has no intention in giving the flatpak version proper treatment or care. It should not be promoted as if it is verified / official. This wrongfully signals to users that

1. Linux and flatpak have first-party support and are a priority to Discord Inc.
2. The app is ensured to be safe by Discord's own standards.

The work the maintainers put into this project is admirable, but the bottom line is that badge signals that this isn't a community effort and instead coming from the direct source. That simply is not true.