I'm playing as a benevolent custom race against, among others, the Altarians.  Early in the game I went into diplomacy, and was surprised to see that the Altarians were not friendly, in part because they said I had an opposing ideology.  Maybe 30 turns later, after reloading from a save a couple of times, I went back to diplomacy and found that the Altarians were now friendly, saying that they shared my ideology. 

I can think of 3 possible reasons for this, and am wondering what others think might be causing it.

1) It might be that my first look was when they had only colonized Altaria and Wisp, and thus had not had a chance to make any ideology picks.  In this case it would be better if ideology agreement/opposition did not factor into the relationship status.  Note that because they were unfriendly to me I was unable to trade Open Borders with them.

2) The Altarians could have taken a pragmatic pick before my first look, and then taken one or more benevolent picks before my second look.  This would be unexpected behavior (at least to me), but would explain what I saw, and in my opinion would not constitute a bug.

3) The Altarians started down one ideology path before my first look, but on reloading the game the ideology (at least as far as it figures into the relationship status) was lost due to a bug.