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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”

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Bad practices, like (linking to) websites that do not degrade gracefully, is worthwhile. Only by creating awareness, change can be invoked.

I would love to see a text editor, a spreadsheet editor, or a piece of mapping software that's as usable as Google Docs and Google Maps that you create with plain HTML :)

[deleted]

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

#362
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…

We all know that you can't trust Microsoft, but a lot of people blindly trust Canonical just because they create a Linux distro. I haven't trusted Canonical since I noticed their pattern of creating competing alternatives to new Linux standards instead of helping them (Mir & Wayland, Snap & Flatpack, Unity & Gnome 3). It'd be one thing if they were bringing better ideas and long-term support to their alternatives, bu…

Launchpad, Bazaar, Upstart.

Some of them nice projects in their own right, but it's hard the shake the feeling of NIH syndrome.

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

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "free as in lying around on the ground", it's free as in "freedom". You have to agree to Canonical's "Terms of Service" to use Ubuntu, so you are a licensed customer of Canonical's. In this case, the license is the GPL, none of which has anything to say about privacy. Maybe this is a failure of the Free Software Foundation's to not include privacy protection in the GPL. Though even if they were to create a G…

> the license is the GPL, none of which has anything to say about privacy The anti-patent-trolling, anti-tivoization and copyleft provisions are there to protect developers and users. Additional clauses around privacy and security would be very nice. Unfortunately, corporate-sponsored FUD made a lot of people wary of the GPL - which is ironic, given its protective features.

People are coming into this thread, talking about "this should not happen cuz free software." And Free Software protections are just completely orthogonal to privacy protections.

There is a certain level of reasoning where one might say that, if the software were truly libre, you could "just" fork it and rip out the parts you don't like. But because you clearly can't "just" do that, then the software must not be free.

Yes. The software is not Libre.

But it's not clear to me that this is the case because the system is hosted on Azure or the distro is Ubuntu. Your rights within a marketplace go only so far as you can throw your alternatives. Software, especially operating systems, are just too complex to expect the concept of Free Software to be sufficient to protect user privacy.

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

#364
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The negative impact of this goes on his shoulders Well, in this case, people are mad at Azure/MS and Canonical for betraying developer trust, not the individual salesperson. He's just a pawn in the game. It's not like this guy went rogue; this is his job. The system is setup in a creepy way to enable this type of upselling, which makes people uncomfortable. Whether or not Azure or Canonical change policies, we shal…

> Well, in this case, people are mad at Azure/MS and Canonical for betraying developer trust, not the individual salesperson. He's just a pawn in the game. It's not like this guy went rogue; this is his job. It's still his linkedin profile plastered all over twitter right now though more than Azure's EULA/T&C's.

Frankly, using a personal profile for work activity in this vein is just not a good idea. Regardless of whether Linkedin ‘forbids’ creating secondary accounts.

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

#365
post #357
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thei…

Thank you for the aside!

Too late to edit, though.

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

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. But then stop complaining about it every chance you get. It’s the equivalent of taking the steering wheel out of your car so if you get in an accident you don’t hit your head on it, then complaining that streets have turns. For better or worse, the web now requires JS to function unless you restrict yourself to some very specific communities. If that’s the case and you want to do that, good for you. But every…

I disagree. Bad practices, like (linking to) websites that do not degrade gracefully, is worthwhile. Only by creating awareness, change can be invoked.

Exactly. IMO a much better analogy would be a vegetarian being presented with a purely carnivorous meal, meat with blood to drink, not being allowed a glass of water, and saying “all I see is meat”. I may be mildly biased as a flexitarian, but I don’t see that as being analogous to removing a steering wheel and complaining about road turns. Maybe analogous to boycotting fossil-fueled vehicles and complaining about a lack of walking paths, bicycle lanes, or charging ports.

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

#367
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the page, https://ubuntu.com/download/server You get three options to run Ubuntu server. The first option is to run Ubuntu server in a VM, and most users will want to run Ubuntu server in a VM. Multipass is a tool that helps you run Ubuntu server in a VM. Multipass is just a front-end for KVM when you use a Linux distribution. If you use Windows, it is a front-end for Hyper-V, etc. The second option is to perf…

Canonical now goes far, far (far) out of their way to hide the normal ISO installers. I mean, they try and bury them so deep that I can only find them now by googling for the name of the ISO I already have. Find your path to this page easily from the landing pages: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-legacy-server/releases/foca...

What search engine are you using ? The first result when typing "ubuntu iso" in Google leads to a page where the first button is a link to a direct download. For "ubuntu server iso" it's pretty much the same, with just one extra click

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

#368
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? When I buy something at a brick and mortar store, I don't expect the product's manufacturer to get my personal information. I don't even expect the store to get my personal information if I pay in cash. I don't want some "relationship" with a company just because I buy their product.

> I don't want some "relationship" with a company just because I buy their product. You've never needed warranty support before? I'm not aware of ways in which that works without them knowing who you are, or where they should mail the repaired product back to.

But that's only necessary if and when I open a support case with them, not merely because I bought the product.

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

#369
post #365
post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 thei…

Thank you for the aside! Too late to edit, though.

Thanks for hearing it out!

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

#370
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * 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…

The alternative is that Azure owns complete access to the customer. Which seems... well, an easy skip to App Store-esque rent seeking. So MS sharing "their" customer details with the image provider seems more generous than evil. Provided there's a "Do not share" config option somewhere.

So if I write a piece of software that eventually makes it to Debian and Ubuntu, am I entitled to your name, address, phone number, email, and a data feed showing every time you start or stop your Ubuntu instances on Azure? After all, I am a third party software provider at that point. And look, Azure doesn’t even have to tell you they are sending me all that stuff. It’s in the TOS you didn’t read!
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