@dfaure Hi. I am lost a bit when parsing myself the "since ..." :)

I would have thought the reasoning would be about that parse() _does_ handle those flags, and one wants to exit only the new process instance after -h/-v handling, not the running one.

Can we perhaps reword this a bit?

This is about the code in the slot connected to this signal (activateRequested).
That slot executes in the already running process, after the DBus communication.
In that slot, we want to call parse() and not process(), so that we do NOT handle --help/--version.

To support those (in the "client" app, the newly started one, before it makes the DBus call), we need to use process() *before* creating the KDBusService instance.

Ah, I missed process!=parse, always read that into being the same method name (and thinking of process() behaviour). Okay, now I get it, thanks.
Perhaps still the text could be shaped to not have others run into the same, by putting process vs. parse more explixitly. Will see if it bothers me enough to make a patch :)