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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”

#421
post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "On February 10th, a new Canonical Sales Representative contacted one of these developers via LinkedIn, with a poor choice of word. In light of this incident, Canonical will be reviewing its sales training and policies." The part I find the most enlightening (ie: disturbing) is that Canonical's only regret is that the sales rep used "a poor choice of word" and they will train their salespeople better. I assume the…

I like how the vocabulary you use imply there is something highly nefarious happening here whereas it is all fairly standard direct marketing based on an exchange of data clearly highlighted in the TOS. I don't really understand why everyone is up in arms here. In this case, Microsoft is basically a reseller. They told Canonical that they sold one of their product to a customer and Canonical reached out on LinkedIn,…

Unless you're the kind of person that actually sits and reads the EULA prior to hitting OK every single time, I'd say it makes complete sense people are up in arms. There is a difference between legally defensible and reasonable expectations.

It is actually completely unacceptable on what is advertised as a secure platform to engage in targeted marketing AT ALL. If any information about what my company is doing on your platform is shared to other companies, then you are not secure by any definition of the word that I'm aware of. It is not for you to judge what information is valuable or damaging for us.

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

#422
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…

Damn, I wasn't aware that they share this kind of information. Luckily I'm in Europe and I think here they'd need at least an additional opt-in to do stuff like that. That said I have to say "No thank you, please don't send all my data to the cloud" at least 5 times when installing Windows 10 these days, so I'm sure they definitely try. I haven't used Azure in a while though so I can't be sure. That's also why I use…

Even here in Europe privacy laws are much lighter when it comes to B2B stuff.

It's actually legal to send unsolicited spam to business emails sadly.

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

#423
post #54
post #40

As someone who works in tech sales - the real bullshit here is that this is some right-out-of-college 22 y/o entry level sales person (SDR) who was likely told to to take this list and message everyone on linkedin 1x1. The negative impact of this goes on his shoulders where the positive responses from this get passed off to someone else who is outside the blast radius. Stuff like this is the norm when sales is viewed…

I think LinkedIn is kinda ... tainted so mass spam is just considered par for the course on there, sadly. Nobody thinks twice about spamming on there. I log on there and it's all spam-ish content. And really all I want to know is what people I worked with are doing now / how they're doing....

Yeah spam, people kowtowing to their company's PR gospel, and the usual "inspirational" messages from sponsors.

It's a sickening mess of PR giddiness but unfortunately it's needed to get a job nowadays.

I hate it so much though, never post anything and I only accept people I actually know.

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

#424
post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

I think there's a difference here; you can get Ubuntu got free outside of Azure without being a customer of Canonical, but you can't get an iPhone from Apple for free from them just by going through a different channel

I think I'm missing something... Ubuntu is developed by Canonical, right? Just because you do not pay for it when you get it outside of Azure does not mean you are not their customer?

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

#425

It's a real shame, Ubuntu used to be my go-to distro, but for me this is the last straw in the history of shady things Canonical has done. One of the things I liked most about Ubuntu is that the installation process is incredibly easy and everything "just works". Does anyone know a good alternative? I'd love to go all in on Alpine, but using it on the desktop doesn't exactly spark joy.

Alpine has a desktop centric spinoff called Adelie Linux. Pretty nice though it's still in RC state.

Though I switched to FreeBSD myself for my desktop.

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

#426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The zfs reason makes sense, but in recent releases Debian and Ubuntu take the same approach to systemd, so switching between those two wouldn't meaningfully change the init system situation. (I did see the smiley face; this comment is just in case that smiley is more self-deprecation than sarcasm, or for other readers.)

I put the smiley there because just the other day I was defending systemd on a different HN discussion as a perfectly usable piece of software. I meant that I wanted to move off a system that uses systemd which would mean both Debian and Ubuntu. It has been a while since I’ve run a non-Linux server so part of it is to stretch my stead in muscles. Don’t want to get rusty.

Gotcha! Keeping skills fresh and broad is a good idea.

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

#427
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, to me the MS statement is the most illuminating and I'm guessing that Canonical is getting some grumpy calls from Microsoft. This is the last part of the Microsoft statement: "Our terms with our publishers allow them to provide customers with implementation and technical support for their products but restricts them from using contact details for marketing purposes" Canonical then tells us that this person…

> "On February 10th, a new Canonical Sales Representative contacted one of these developers via LinkedIn, with a poor choice of word. In light of this incident, Canonical will be reviewing its sales training and policies." The part I find the most enlightening (ie: disturbing) is that Canonical's only regret is that the sales rep used "a poor choice of word" and they will train their salespeople better. I assume the…

>Canonical never said "oh the salesperson wasn't supposed to market to you with this information"

Canonical never said "oh the salesperson shouldn't have had this information".

There's only one way they could have used it.

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

#428
post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a difference here; you can get Ubuntu got free outside of Azure without being a customer of Canonical, but you can't get an iPhone from Apple for free from them just by going through a different channel

I think I'm missing something... Ubuntu is developed by Canonical, right? Just because you do not pay for it when you get it outside of Azure does not mean you are not their customer?

Doesn't customer imply a paying relationship? If I put some code online and let people use my software I'd say that makes them at most my users, not consumers.

When you get it a certain way through Azure you both enter a contractual agreement with each other, and that does make you a customer.

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

#429
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…

Depends a lot on the free product. For a linux distro, my expectations are that it's "free" but support will cost you money. My expectation is not that it's "free" and the OS will spy on you and report back to HQ so sales can make more sales. If I don't give personal information on installation my expectation is the product is not harvesting or forwarding that information (For example, I expect that with Facebook, I…

Well, in the case it's not from the OS, but purely from Azure.

And you're selling the information in order to get tech support from Canonical, otherwise you can get it without selling your info (but won't really receive tech support).

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

#430
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You buy a dishwasher from Best Buy. They send your name and address to Maytag... Cool? Since most appliance manufacturers require you registering your product with them for warranty service, yes, please take care of that for me (many appliance stores do). Now _should_ Maytag require that registration? If it makes for a quicker and smoother warranty service process then I'm okay with it - better than needing to dig…

> Since most appliance manufacturers require you registering your product with them for warranty service, yes, please take care of that for me (many appliance stores do) Manufacturers legally have to honor their warranty regardless of you giving them your information. They don’t exactly say you won’t be covered by warranty if you don’t “register”, because they legally can’t.

The trick used in the US is that if you do not offer this information you get a ridiculously short legal-minimum warranty.
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