Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ubuntu Spyware: What to Do?

fsf.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 214 posts

Re: Ubuntu Spyware: What to Do?

#181

Post by SilasX »

cs702 wrote: post #150
belorn wrote: post #59

A lot of people are pointing out that if you do not like something, don't use it. It's simple enough, and have a "sounds right" tone to it. As an implied statement with this, anyone complaining should just shut up then. This is a rather crazy line of thought once one actually starts to think about it. If I see a poisonous (say rotten) food being sold, I find it almost my duty to inform people. Somehow it's now being…

One of the solutions suggested by rms strikes me as reasonable: Ubuntu should make make search only local by default, but show a "search online too" toggle button right next to all search results. If Ubuntu does that, the problem goes away, because users who want only local search don't have to do anything, and users who want global search can turn online search on/off at will by clicking a toggle button right there…

That's a good idea -- in theory. In practice, how would that enrich Canonical from tie-in deals?

Re: Ubuntu Spyware: What to Do?

#182

Post by cjg »

Shamanmuni wrote: post #115
belorn wrote: post #59

A lot of people are pointing out that if you do not like something, don't use it. It's simple enough, and have a "sounds right" tone to it. As an implied statement with this, anyone complaining should just shut up then. This is a rather crazy line of thought once one actually starts to think about it. If I see a poisonous (say rotten) food being sold, I find it almost my duty to inform people. Somehow it's now being…

Personally, while I generally agree with rms, in this particular situation I think he went overboard. Not in expressing his opinion, but in the way he did it. I say this as a free software advocate; this situation arises from a sad reality, and one that rms doesn't even address: it's really hard to make money from free software. I don't think Mark Shuttleworth was enthusiastic about sending users' information, the de…

RMS doesn't care if Canonical make any money.

Re: Ubuntu Spyware: What to Do?

#183

Post by cooldeal »

cs702 wrote: post #150
belorn wrote: post #59

A lot of people are pointing out that if you do not like something, don't use it. It's simple enough, and have a "sounds right" tone to it. As an implied statement with this, anyone complaining should just shut up then. This is a rather crazy line of thought once one actually starts to think about it. If I see a poisonous (say rotten) food being sold, I find it almost my duty to inform people. Somehow it's now being…

One of the solutions suggested by rms strikes me as reasonable: Ubuntu should make make search only local by default, but show a "search online too" toggle button right next to all search results. If Ubuntu does that, the problem goes away, because users who want only local search don't have to do anything, and users who want global search can turn online search on/off at will by clicking a toggle button right there…

>f Ubuntu does that, the problem goes away

No it doesn't. Ubuntu's "problem" is that it's not making any money, at least not enough to support the 500 employees it has. Making it non-default will kill 99% of the revenue from Amazon since hardly anyone(not enough people to make money on) will go out of the way to click the toggle button.

Re: Ubuntu Spyware: What to Do?

#184

Post by unalone »

cooldeal wrote: post #183
cs702 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the solutions suggested by rms strikes me as reasonable: Ubuntu should make make search only local by default, but show a "search online too" toggle button right next to all search results. If Ubuntu does that, the problem goes away, because users who want only local search don't have to do anything, and users who want global search can turn online search on/off at will by clicking a toggle button right there…

>f Ubuntu does that, the problem goes away No it doesn't. Ubuntu's "problem" is that it's not making any money, at least not enough to support the 500 employees it has. Making it non-default will kill 99% of the revenue from Amazon since hardly anyone(not enough people to make money on) will go out of the way to click the toggle button.

This is a problem with paying people to work on an open source project, no? Either those people accept working without pay, or else they have to make compromises that might involve defying the principles of the Open Source Movement.

Theoretically a company can get around this by offering a commercial enterprise on top of their free project, but that's harder to pull off, especially if the point of your project is to offer a good enough open source environment that people want to use it.

Re: Ubuntu Spyware: What to Do?

#185

Post by Osiris »

Taking a political angle on it: Won't the free software market decide winners and losers?

In other words, there are hundreds of Linux distributions. Choose a different one. If you really like it fork it and rebuild it without support for that feature.

Isn't the point of free software that you have the inherent right to do whatever you want to the software to make it do what you want (or not do what you don't)?

Re: Ubuntu Spyware: What to Do?

#186

Post by TallGuyShort »

Osiris wrote: post #185

Taking a political angle on it: Won't the free software market decide winners and losers? In other words, there are hundreds of Linux distributions. Choose a different one. If you really like it fork it and rebuild it without support for that feature. Isn't the point of free software that you have the inherent right to do whatever you want to the software to make it do what you want (or not do what you don't)?

You're exactly right - and his article is explicitly encouraging this behaviour. He's not calling for any additional action than for people to create, recommend and use distributions that don't do this, and to make others aware of the potentially harmful effects of Ubuntu's decision.

Re: Ubuntu Spyware: What to Do?

#187

Post by mixmastamyk »

cooldeal wrote: post #183
cs702 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the solutions suggested by rms strikes me as reasonable: Ubuntu should make make search only local by default, but show a "search online too" toggle button right next to all search results. If Ubuntu does that, the problem goes away, because users who want only local search don't have to do anything, and users who want global search can turn online search on/off at will by clicking a toggle button right there…

>f Ubuntu does that, the problem goes away No it doesn't. Ubuntu's "problem" is that it's not making any money, at least not enough to support the 500 employees it has. Making it non-default will kill 99% of the revenue from Amazon since hardly anyone(not enough people to make money on) will go out of the way to click the toggle button.

Having "a family to feed" is not a good defense for spying. They need to downsize apparently. Not a bad thing either. I could do without the constant churn of desktop components.

Re: Ubuntu Spyware: What to Do?

#188

Post by mixmastamyk »

Shamanmuni wrote: post #115
belorn wrote: post #59

A lot of people are pointing out that if you do not like something, don't use it. It's simple enough, and have a "sounds right" tone to it. As an implied statement with this, anyone complaining should just shut up then. This is a rather crazy line of thought once one actually starts to think about it. If I see a poisonous (say rotten) food being sold, I find it almost my duty to inform people. Somehow it's now being…

Personally, while I generally agree with rms, in this particular situation I think he went overboard. Not in expressing his opinion, but in the way he did it. I say this as a free software advocate; this situation arises from a sad reality, and one that rms doesn't even address: it's really hard to make money from free software. I don't think Mark Shuttleworth was enthusiastic about sending users' information, the de…

Having a failed business model doesn't make spying on users ok.

Re: Ubuntu Spyware: What to Do?

#189

Post by nathanb »

pekk wrote: post #169
belorn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its like with food-like objects, like plastic decorative fruits, pickled decorative food, and small candy like objects. With clear labeling, everything is fine and those objects do fulfill their role. Without clear labels however, they are a risk to people. Pickled decorative food is a special notable case here, in which if it was eaten, is indeed very poisonous. And while I hope, really hope that people will figure…

I don't think it's warranted to leap from 'this product does external searches' to 'this product is spying nefariously on you and is therefore analogous to poisoned food.'

They are providing your data to a third party who intend to use it for profit without your explicit consent.

How heinous you view this act depends on how much you value your data, I suppose, but I think the analogy quite accurately describes Stallman's feelings on the matter and is thus an apt analogy for him to use in an article. It may not represent your feelings on the matter. It would be more productive to dispute why you think Canonical's actions are not a breach of privacy or not offensive to you rather than taking exception to his analogy.

Re: Ubuntu Spyware: What to Do?

#190

Post by stinos »

bcoates wrote: post #174
stinos wrote: post #122

>> when he searched for a string in the files of his Windows system, it sent a packet to some server anyone has a source for this? Was this built into windows? (It's not in mine, or it's not active)

Windows XP search assistant* has a database of file types it uses for filtering and to determine which files are worth searching into. It also has a small misfeature where it updates this database every time you search. It doesn't send anything to Microsoft about what you're searching for, it's just an overly persistent auto-update mechanism. The usual suspects freaked out about this, of course. * The little dog that…

ah the dog. One of the first things to get rid of in XP :]
Post reply on HN