Each time I light up my phone I see a couple of these messages in Journalctl -ef kdeconnectd[nnnn]: "htc" - warning, device uses a different protocol version 7 expected 5 They seem unnecessary, especially since there isn't a thing the user can do about the asynchronous releases in Google Play and the KDE repositories. And sending a file from phone to linux causes boaloads of these messages "Could not find service for job "Job 7" with app name "org.kde.kdeconnectd" " Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Open a shell and type journalctl -ef (or use your favorite log follower) 2. light up your Android. 3. View spew Actual Results: Spew in logs. (By far not the worst offender - but still part of the problem). Got more than one device? Lots more spew! Expected Results: Log failures and important stuff only. If the software can handle multiple protocol versions on the fly, then a variation is not a problem, its a feature, and need not fill the logs. Htc One M8, android 6.0 but same behavior with different devices.
Even if we remove this log message, you would have to update KDE Connect for you to get the fix... Which defeats the point of it because if you update KDE Connect you won't see the message telling you that you are using an old version anyway. Please use a recent version of KDE Connect, that's the reason the message is there in the first place.
Most of us are pretty well stuck with what ever our distro is pushing out. Did you mean to suggest all users shoud start compiling this application from stratch? I think the log level is simply set too high. Warning in the logs will do nothing to help joe user. If its important, and the user can actually do something about it, put it the application's screen.
I understand the distributions problem, it is indeed a big problem for the Linux ecosystem and something we should change... but not something we can do as developers. What I recommend you is to ask your distribution's packagers for an updated version of KDE Connect: this way not only you but lots of other users will benefit from the upgrade. A more radical solution would be to switch to a distribution with more up-to-date versions.