Microsoft, currently the most valuable company, is having a Nadellaissance • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft, currently the most valuable company, is having a Nadellaissance

#341

Post by TheIronYuppie » Sat, May 04, 2019, 1:14 AM UTC

ionised wrote: post #323

TheIronYuppie wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say more? Like there is none what? If there are any changes to this doc - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/gd... - you would be able to check that immediately, and we would never change our data collection policy without changing that document... It's the law! Disclosure: I work at Azure on machine learning but not VS Code

He means no telemetry. None whatsoever. At the very least a default opt-out.

You got it! https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-di...

(we ask both during install, and you can disable at any time)

Re: Microsoft, currently the most valuable company, is having a Nadellaissance

#342

Post by Silhouette » Sat, May 04, 2019, 2:33 AM UTC

TheIronYuppie wrote: post #340

Silhouette wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little late to this party, but I couldn't agree more (except that I'm in the fortunate position of making decisions about my businesses, so we can decide not to use Windows 10 at all for much the same reasons). We also don't use VS Code at all, for one simple reason: we tried to determine what the privacy policy actually was, and we couldn't. In particular, there appeared to be wording among the various indirec…

Good news! The privacy policy is specifically listed in our FAQ on our website - https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/FAQ We _only_ collect telemetry data. NEVER user data. And you can opt out! (it's right there during set up - or you can go here - https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-di... ). Again, to reiterate, we would never collect data if you didn't consent. It's the law!

Good news! The privacy policy is specifically listed in our FAQ on our website

Unfortunately, if you go down that rabbit hole (which we did before) it follows various redirect links and ends up at https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement, which is a generic document that changes frequently and includes by reference ambiguous additional product-specific documents that may or may not exist.

What you need here is an absolutely clear, unambiguous statement to the effect that you will never under any circumstances upload our source code or other proprietary data to any external system without our explicit opt-in. It's really that simple. Otherwise, I'm afraid those of us working under commercial confidentiality agreements or other legal controls are just going to run away.

Again, to reiterate, we would never collect data if you didn't consent. It's the law!

Perhaps you could explain to me how to turn off the telemetry in Windows 10 then? Or for that matter how consent was obtained for the telemetry that was silently added to earlier Windows versions after release by anyone who installed Microsoft's recommended updates?

I appreciate that your personal intentions may be honest and good here, but the simple fact is that your organisation has a very clear, very bad track record at this in recent years, and its senior leadership has not only been entirely unretentant about that policy despite widespread criticism but actively doubled down on it. Anything Microsoft does will naturally be contaminated by that history now, unless as a minimum it makes a clear, legally actionable statement and/or imposes verifiable technical measures to guarantee different behaviour.

Re: Microsoft, currently the most valuable company, is having a Nadellaissance

#343

Post by tekknik » Sat, May 04, 2019, 2:30 PM UTC

TheIronYuppie wrote: post #339

yellowapple wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've been asking users for feedback for 20+ years, I hope we've shown ourselves to be good actors! Not sure about the Azure team (since my experience with Azure is limited to a one-off project that required a SQL Server instance to test compatibility with some client's legacy DB, plus some very recent dabbling in VS Code and Azure Data Studio), but whichever team runs Windows nowadays, for example, hasn't exactly…

I should have said - "be good actors in relation to how we handle your data." According to the Windows GDPR statement ( https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/gdpr-it-gui... ), we only collect Windows functional data and Windows diagnostic data, and only if you allow us. If we did more than that, we'd be liable for huge fines/jail! We have never "siphoned your data for multiple decades" - we only collect WH…

You keep saying trust the GDPR, but what about us on the other side of the pond? GDPR gives us zero recourse if you do run afoul.

Re: Microsoft, currently the most valuable company, is having a Nadellaissance

#344

Post by chillacy » Sun, May 05, 2019, 9:15 AM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #336

Nextgrid wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re talking about using a Linux operating system to replace Windows. I don’t think bringing up where the Linux kernel is used alone is relevant.

Linux is the kernel, though (and debatably also the application API/ABI). That's all it is. At the risk of sounding like some Richard Stallman wannabe, your complaints should be directed at GNU (or perhaps GNOME or KDE). Trying to argue "well those don't count because they're not real Linux" is 1) blatantly false and 2) a textbook case of a No True Scotsman fallacy. Linux is Linux, regardless of which userland happen…

I wasn't being crisp in my definitions, I'm using Linux to refer to the OS on desktop. My bad for any confusion.

Re: Microsoft, currently the most valuable company, is having a Nadellaissance

#345

Post by TheIronYuppie » Sun, May 05, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #342

TheIronYuppie wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good news! The privacy policy is specifically listed in our FAQ on our website - https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/FAQ We _only_ collect telemetry data. NEVER user data. And you can opt out! (it's right there during set up - or you can go here - https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-di... ). Again, to reiterate, we would never collect data if you didn't consent. It's the law!

Good news! The privacy policy is specifically listed in our FAQ on our website Unfortunately, if you go down that rabbit hole (which we did before) it follows various redirect links and ends up at https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement , which is a generic document that changes frequently and includes by reference ambiguous additional product-specific documents that may or may not exist. What you need h…

From the linked FAQ:

VS Code collects usage data and sends it to Microsoft to help improve our products and services. Read our privacy statement to learn more.

If you don't wish to send usage data to Microsoft, you can set the telemetry.enableTelemetry setting to false.

From File > Preferences > Settings (macOS: Code > Preferences > Settings), search for telemetry.enableTelemetry and uncheck the setting. This will silence all telemetry events from VS Code going forward. Telemetry information may have been collected and sent up until the point when you disable the setting.

That's ALL telemetry. So, the second you don't actively opt-in, we collect no telemetry data in VS Code AT ALL.

You'll also want to disable crash reporting:

VS Code collects data about any crashes that occur and sends it to Microsoft to help improve our products and services. Read our privacy statement to learn more.

If you don't wish to send crash data to Microsoft, you can set the telemetry.enableCrashReporter setting to false.

It's that simple. Absolutely nothing - and CERTAINLY no user code (which we never collected in the first place.

Re: Microsoft, currently the most valuable company, is having a Nadellaissance

#346

Post by redisman » Sun, May 05, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #111

calvinbhai wrote: post #93

Having read Nadella's book Hit Refresh as soon as it went on sale, Microsoft performance since then doesn't look surprising at all. Having listed what's wrong (with their product focus, company culture etc), and where they plan to head, its' almost like the book informs the reader where puck is going to be (from Satya's POV). It's funny that 15 years back I was so anti MS and pro Google and now I think it's the other…

“It's funny that 15 years back I was so anti MS and pro Google and now I think it's the other way!” Stay skeptical of all of them. No need to be fan of one of the big techs. In the end they are all greedy organizations that want to dominate. None of them should be trusted.

Tech giants are the biggest companies by market cap and run the world now. They're not the lovable runts from the 90's anymore.

Re: Microsoft, currently the most valuable company, is having a Nadellaissance

#347

Post by Silhouette » Mon, May 06, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

TheIronYuppie wrote: post #345

Silhouette wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good news! The privacy policy is specifically listed in our FAQ on our website Unfortunately, if you go down that rabbit hole (which we did before) it follows various redirect links and ends up at https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement , which is a generic document that changes frequently and includes by reference ambiguous additional product-specific documents that may or may not exist. What you need h…

From the linked FAQ: VS Code collects usage data and sends it to Microsoft to help improve our products and services. Read our privacy statement to learn more. If you don't wish to send usage data to Microsoft, you can set the telemetry.enableTelemetry setting to false. From File > Preferences > Settings (macOS: Code > Preferences > Settings), search for telemetry.enableTelemetry and uncheck the setting. This will si…

Thank you for the further response. I'm not sure whether this is your area at work or you're just trying to help here, but as further feedback in return, that reads like an opt-out scheme to me. I'm also immediately struck that this relies on a setting (which Microsoft products have a history of changing when installing later updates) and that we still haven't resolved whether VS Code has its own separate privacy policy (which is mentioned as a possibility in the generic Microsoft privacy statement we were discussing before, without any specific indication of how to determine the answer definitively or where it would be found if it exists).

So again, while I appreciate that individuals involved may have honest intentions and be trying to help here, this is still a very long way from the kind of clear, unambiguous official statement that would make me trust any Microsoft product enough to use it in the current data-harvesting, forced-updates climate. I have specific legal obligations to clients when dealing with their source code and the proprietary knowledge implicit within it, and there's no way I can take this sort of documentation to my lawyer and say "Can I use this?".

Re: Microsoft, currently the most valuable company, is having a Nadellaissance

#348

Post by majkinetor » Mon, May 06, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

majkinetor wrote: post #155

max76 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would have thought open sourcing so much of it's framework I have a pedantic correction here. Instead of open sourcing the .NET Framework they wrote a new opensource framework (named .NET core) that is very similar to their closed source framework. Microsoft is currently supporting and expanding both frameworks.

FYI, only way forward is core. Microsoft doesn't really invest much in older net and related (for example PowerShell 5). There may be fixes here and there but are mostly security. It defies logic to support 2 frameworks, one of which is WAY BETTER then the other and x-platform.

And only few days after this comment, is official:

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/introducing-net-5/

Re: Microsoft, currently the most valuable company, is having a Nadellaissance

#349

Post by yellowapple » Mon, May 06, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

chillacy wrote: post #344

yellowapple wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux is the kernel, though (and debatably also the application API/ABI). That's all it is. At the risk of sounding like some Richard Stallman wannabe, your complaints should be directed at GNU (or perhaps GNOME or KDE). Trying to argue "well those don't count because they're not real Linux" is 1) blatantly false and 2) a textbook case of a No True Scotsman fallacy. Linux is Linux, regardless of which userland happen…

I wasn't being crisp in my definitions, I'm using Linux to refer to the OS on desktop. My bad for any confusion.

No worries. It's worth clarifying specifically because of how many user-facing software stacks are indeed built on top of Linux.

Still, I feel like the only reason the Year of the Linux Desktop hasn't "arrived" is because we keep moving the goalposts on what "Linux Desktop" means (and/or maintain an unnecessarily strict definition of it), probably because we do mean "GNU Desktop" or "GNOME Desktop" or "KDE Desktop" or "X11 Desktop" or something along those lines when we say "Linux Desktop".

Would you count ChromeOS as a desktop Linux? If not, why?

Re: Microsoft, currently the most valuable company, is having a Nadellaissance

#350

Post by yellowapple » Mon, May 06, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

TheIronYuppie wrote: post #339

yellowapple wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've been asking users for feedback for 20+ years, I hope we've shown ourselves to be good actors! Not sure about the Azure team (since my experience with Azure is limited to a one-off project that required a SQL Server instance to test compatibility with some client's legacy DB, plus some very recent dabbling in VS Code and Azure Data Studio), but whichever team runs Windows nowadays, for example, hasn't exactly…

I should have said - "be good actors in relation to how we handle your data." According to the Windows GDPR statement ( https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/gdpr-it-gui... ), we only collect Windows functional data and Windows diagnostic data, and only if you allow us. If we did more than that, we'd be liable for huge fines/jail! We have never "siphoned your data for multiple decades" - we only collect WH…

I know a lot of people like to claim that the US is like the EU, but this is the first time I've heard someone claim that the US is literally in the EU.

Less sarcastically: the GDPR is not applicable in the US, so hiding behind that does me no good. If your only defense is "but the GDPR doesn't let us do that!", then that's deeply concerning and only proves my point.