Imagine a system where you are just an end user, one of hundreds or even thousands, and the admin removes an application. I would be furious if the admin would also delete my personal application data from my homedir. There could be important settings in there, that I might want to move to another system, or maybe I’ll install my own flatpak in my homedir and continue to use those settings. There could be stuff in there that’s important and for which no backup exists.
Yeah, it should be a setting. Up to the admin to pick if the settings are kept or not or let the user decide. It absolutely works fine with Windows which is far more used in corporate settings than Linux in terms of end-user OS.
Do you know what would make me furious? If I as a system admin removed an application due to huge security risks that could have infected cache or user data and some random user tried to install it against my clear wishes to not have it on my system. If you want to infect your own system, go ahead. It’s not the 70s anymore though. No one is using dummy terminals. Everyone can locally install something locally. If you don’t have admin access to your own computer there is a good reason why you don’t.
So overall I don’t see this as a good argument to default to keeping the files. Especially if it’s a security risk situation.
So how would you implement that: would you, while uninstalling a system flatpak, be given the option to only remove your personal files and leave the files in other homedirs intact? Or should it remove the files for all other users too, without their permission?
Should be an option. VLC has this option on Windows along with other applications. You can install VLC for a user to use or for the system and you can clear the configs/cache/etc on uninstall. Literally, just copy that. If an “admin” has deemed the settings should be removed then remove them. It’s their system, not the users.