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“I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

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Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#351

Post by IgorPartola »

andrewzah wrote: post #273
IgorPartola wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your arguments in that if your stack is already built on Docker it's a lot to ask to move to a different system. But if you are choosing a new stack for a new project, why not look at alternatives to Docker? There are many and jails is a good one. Granted, I haven't looked much at orchestration tools for jails. As far as do you need Docker in the first place? Well maybe. One of my favorite orchestration…

"Since all workstations ran Ubuntu and all servers ran Ubuntu" Admittedly our company is small (~5 fulltime devs), but we have: mac osx catalina, debian buster, debian bullseye, and ubuntu bionic beaver. So precompiling .debs won't work here. Docker gives us all a common ground, minus some wonky mac docker issues with DNS. Also, this assumes that one is using a server in the first place. We run our own kubernetes clu…

> Admittedly our company is small (~5 fulltime devs), but we have: mac osx catalina, debian buster, debian bullseye, and ubuntu bionic beaver. So precompiling .debs won't work here. Docker gives us all a common ground, minus some wonky mac docker issues with DNS.

That does make it more difficult. Docker does sound like the common ground then.

> Again, this is a strawman. You can butcher things with docker, or without docker. The same can happen with i.e. Ansible & Terraform (which we also use). I can, and do, analyze our images to see what we can reduce to. Most of our images are either on Scratch or Alpine Linux, thanks to multi-stage builds.

It's a related argument. My point is that Docker allows you to take shortcuts too easily compared to other methods. And when you are faced with figuring out how to make your software work with widgetlib 1.0.4 provided by the system instead of widgetlib 1.0.5 which is what you originally built it for, you have a choice of packaging 1.0.5 yourself and potentially doing that improperly (make && make install inside a Docker container, paying no attention to dependencies or upgrades), or properly (by creating a standard reproducible build you can track). Docker allows you to take the shortcut easily. It's a powerful tool and it does allow you to create good images, but I have also seen some terrible ones (just like I've seen bad examples of .deb packages, but a lot fewer of them).

Regardless, it's about how you work and how you structure things. I am coming around to Docker as a workflow, but I doubt I'll be creating 120 microservices to run one project anytime soon. Too many things to keep track of and update.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#352

Post by that_guy_iain »

SilasX wrote: post #313
hobofan wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in an CRM there should be checks on who can access what PII and when. There is a difference between "you are assigned 100 leads for the duration of lead qualification" and "you can yourself pick out leads (and can get access to their PII) out of any of the thousands of possible leads".

Yes, and MS claimed that their agreement with Canonical required them not to share that info with sales.

No it said not use that for marketing. And they didn't, the sales person said he would be the point of contact. They didn't market or try to sell him something in his message. He just send a request to be his contact.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#353

Post by ljm »

raesene9 wrote: post #8

The register article on this https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/11/microsoft_azure_ubunt... has responses from Canonical and MS, which shed a bit more light on the situation. The Canonical quote is the most illuminating :- "As per the Azure T&Cs, Microsoft shares with Canonical, the publisher of Ubuntu, the contact details of developers launching Ubuntu instances on Azure. These contact details are held in Canonical…

Sending out a cold email is one thing (most of that ends up in spam anyway), but why the fuck are these people taking the contact details and plugging them into a social network?

I don't agree with any of it, it's a violation of trust and burying it in small print doesn't change that. But having people reach out on their personal networks takes the cake.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#354

Post by aeturnum »

SilasX wrote: post #339
aeturnum wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds of of a 2019 paper on "moral crumple zones"[1] which talks about how the human component of automated systems are increasingly there to act as the focus for moral failures. Did your giant automated system do something bad? Blame the one human who was assigned to somehow stop that from happening, no matter how impossible that might be. [1] https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

Interesting, that’s a great concept. But I’m not sure of the applicability to this case. I’d expect most people to feel icky contacting a lead on this basis, and so that feels like it’s well within the kind of thing a low level employee should throw a red flag at.

The aspect that reminded me of the paper (and the concept) was how the low level employee can really only screw up. If they do well, then it's a credit to their boss, but if they do something wrong it's on them and they'll be fired.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#355

Post by aeturnum »

aftbit wrote: post #226
aeturnum wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds of of a 2019 paper on "moral crumple zones"[1] which talks about how the human component of automated systems are increasingly there to act as the focus for moral failures. Did your giant automated system do something bad? Blame the one human who was assigned to somehow stop that from happening, no matter how impossible that might be. [1] https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

Also see Normal Accidents[1] which discusses "human error" as a PR cover for systems that are simply too complicated for unaided humans to monitor and understand. 1: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/192408.Normal_Accidents

Normal Accidents is a real classic of the genre of disaster studies and points out some very useful realities for tightly coupled systems. Engineers building highly complex systems would do well to read the book and take its lessons to heart.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#356

Post by bialpio »

inetknght wrote: post #47
rkangel wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my first response as well (it's not the data sharing that's the problem, it's that you noticed). Thinking about it though, a lot of it is a question of surprise and unknowns. I would find this message to be a lot better - "We see that you've taken advantage of the Ubuntu image that Canonical provide in the Azure Marketplace. I am available to you for (etc.)".

> * I would find this message to be a lot better - "We see that you've taken advantage of the Ubuntu image* No. That's not better at all. The mere fact that Canonical has specific information to reach me when I am not a direct customer of Canonical is a complete violation of my privacy. Ubuntu is a free product. Canonical should not be able to find out if I (specifically me or my organization) allocates or runs 1 or…

It is a violation of your privacy that you may have already agreed to - presumably MS mentions this in their ToS/privacy policy that this information will be shared. They just conveniently forget to remind you that when you deploy a VM...

Another interesting question: aren't you a direct customer of Canonical here? When you buy stuff off of any marketplace or though a reseller, it seems to me you are a customer for multiple companies. Examples: buying an iPhone from AT&T, buying a laptop from Amazon, buying a Subaru through a dealer.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#357

Post by danans »

xorx wrote: post #225
jacurtis wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes the fact that Microsoft shares this information is concerning. But Microsoft only provides the information to Canonical (according to the ToS) for technical assistance and product support, but not for Marketing purposes. Canonical is the one who violates trust here. Because they are using this information for marketing purposes, which they are not allowed to do under the information sharing agreement that they ha…

You're obviously correct in the de jure sense, here. But there is also a matter of relationship expectation. An unstated assumption of using any "free" product is that it's not actually free. Canonical screwed up, to be sure, but I do think many of us just expect getting harassed by salespeople to be the cost of using a "free" product. Microsoft, on the other hand, charges me by the hour for using Azure. They've take…

> They've taken their pound of flesh,

As an aside, "pound of flesh" doesn't mean "payment", it means "something that is one's legal right but is an unreasonable demand (esp in the phrase to have one's pound of flesh)", both in Shakespeare and in current usage.

Unless you feel Microsoft's price is unreasonable and you have no other option, "pound of flesh" isn't the right expression.

Something like "they've taken their cut" is more accurate.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#358

Post by moron4hire »

goodpoint wrote: post #337
moron4hire wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I definitely agree, I'm just trying to point out that a lot of people here are making assumptions about what "Free Software" means that literally nobody in the FOSS or Open Source movements have ever said were goals.

> nobody in the FOSS or Open Source movements have ever said were goals Citation needed. RMS, the FSF and many other orgs made public statements around privacy many times.

I think you're the one who needs to provide a citation, because I've read a lot of the literature on the FSF's website and not once does privacy come up.

Now, I can't exhaustively prove a negative, but I think I can easily demonstrate that the FSF has never meaningfully expressed an opinion on privacy. Go to https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html, open every single page it links to in the body of the text, and search for the word "privacy". It does not show up in the body text of any of those documents. It shows up once in a footnote that mentions a change that Samsung made had that "caused privacy concerns".

The closest they get to even mentioning the concept of privacy is when they talk about the right to modify software and use those modifications "privately", which clearly does not mean anything about user privacy.

If privacy were so big of a concern for the FSF, you'd think they'd talk about it in their official documentation on their philosophy, or put something about it in the ONE tool they have to have power over anyone: the GPL.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#359

Post by jackson1442 »

throwaway077445 wrote: post #187
fireball_blaze wrote: post #166

Side note... the user on Twitter that originally reported this had his account locked by Twitter for posting the LinkedIn message from the Canonical sales guy. https://twitter.com/LucaBongiorni/status/1359885001844744195

I love how being contacted by a salesman that is acting accordingly to the terms of the contract he accepted is BAD! but publishing a private message without consent and without obfuscating name and surname is RIGHT! Some devs have complete disconnect from reality. (ofc he screams #censorship)

I personally have no qualms publicly posting corporate solicitations on the internet. Had it been a message of personal nature, it would be an entirely different story.

Regardless, it seems abundantly clear that this is his _job_, and he is not at fault for following the directions of his corporate overlords. No one's saying to go trash his house, and all the information he posted (name, photo) is publicly attached to his linkedin profile that is accessible to any authenticated LinkedIn user.

Re: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

#360

Post by MattSayar »

fireball_blaze wrote: post #166

Side note... the user on Twitter that originally reported this had his account locked by Twitter for posting the LinkedIn message from the Canonical sales guy. https://twitter.com/LucaBongiorni/status/1359885001844744195

Dumb question but, if his acct was locked, how did he post that?
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