Politics aside, I don't see what she can contribute to a technology company like Dropbox!
Drop Dropbox
601–610 of 1001 posts
Re: Drop Dropbox
#602I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I absolutely agree with most of the opposition to Condi Rice wrt the illegal war, warrantless wiretaps, torture, etc. On the other hand, I threw a hissy fit over the opposition to Eich based on his beliefs. I'm not sure how I can oppose Rice while standing up for Eich without inconsistency. Anybody else feel conflicted and have some insight? I'm still probably goin…
"But I don't know that I can go on the same kind of crusade for which I faulted the Eich lynch mob." This is so insanely hyperbolic I don't even know where to begin. We're now using the term "lynch mob" for a situation where people a) boycotted the product and b) wrote a lot of things about how what Brandon did was wrong and how he is the wrong choice for CEO. So, lynch mob, which means, "a mob that kills a person fo…
"so insanely hyperbolic"
Re: Drop Dropbox
#603Earlier quoted context omitted.
One thing I can't stand is about our hyper-partisan culture is that attacking someone from one side is seen as 100% political and there are posts like these that are trying to be "even" when, in fact, it's you yourself that is being partisan here. >It has become an article of faith that the Bush administration acted in bad faith about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, while all that really has ever been shown is t…
I read the article you're linking to, and I don't see any allegations that the 900+ false statements were known to be false by the administration at the time[1]. This particular article certainly doesn't meet my standard for "[showing conclusively] that they lied, that they lied knowingly, and that that they lied a lot". Perhaps that evidence exists in another form, but I think you strengthen the GPs argument by pres…
Downing street memos, Rumsfeld memos, the Project for a New American Century Report, Hans Blix assertions that there were no WMDs, historical acts of aggression in other countries, subsequent acts of aggression in other countries, and post-hoc assertions that WMDs were not the main reason for invasion, among other evidence all show that the invasion of Iraq was geo-strategic and not primarily based on disarming Iraq of WMDs, though some senior officials were led to believe that.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/secret-memo-by-donald-rumsfeld-...
Re: Drop Dropbox
#604Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's closed source and proprietary so it is no solution for me.
As opposed to...Dropbox?!? (Recap: "Dropbox substitute?" "What about BTSync?" "Meh, isn't open")
Sorry, I took the comment on its own. I do not use Dropbox. I have not found a usable free sync solution so I am stuck with unison.
Re: Drop Dropbox
#605Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world. In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they v…
I want a company to actively fight the government's intrusion into my data, to ensure that my rights are defended. With this appointment, I have no faith that the Dropbox Board of Directors see their role this way.
If you want that from a company, isn't having someone who used to be deeply involved in the other side a great way to do it?
I'm not saying that's what they'll do, but we don't know either way do we?
Re: Drop Dropbox
#606Finally people realize that Dropbox is unethical. They've been denying your computing freedom for years now, but it took hiring Condoleezza Rice for people to start to catch on. Replace dropbox with ownCloud. http://owncloud.org/
I was looking at their site for a while and I really have no idea what they sell. I'm sure it's just a communication issue, but it seems kind of weird. Like I have to register to find out that I will get a client for free but pay $10K/month for the enterprise software or something. How do they make money? Apparently you use your own server so you must buy the code?
ownCloud is free/open source software - you have no obligation to use ownCloud's servers or pay them anything - you can download both the client and server source code, host the server on your own machine, and connect to that with the client.
ownCloud run a business where they can host a copy of the server software for you, if you don't have your own machine or a usable connection - but there's no requirement to use that - you could spin up an instance in Amazon's cloud or elsewhere too.
Re: Drop Dropbox
#607Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world. In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they v…
No one is proposing laws about who can hold given positions. There is no free speech angle here. What's happening on HN is exactly what our system wants to happen: answer speech you don't like with more speech!
There's a lot at stake here, which is why people are reacting so forcefully. What kind of values does the SV community have? What kind of values do Y Combinator and HN have? People are coming here because HN and Y Combinator very much helped make Dropbox what it is, and if that creation is now paying and giving prestige to a person who has gravely harmed the world, for bad reasons, a lot of people will object and are objecting to that.
A free society has the right to determine what it values. I hope our community decides to value ethics and humanitarianism. One way we can express those values is to speak out against companies that help criminals launder their reputations.
Re: Drop Dropbox
#608Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Wiretapping members of the UN Security Council You realize that is part of the reason we have the NSA, right? Only in a fantasy world do the other members not attempt to spy on the US. The reason why the NSA spying issue is wrong is because they were violating the consitutional rights of US Citizens. The German Chancellor is not a US Citizen and we have every reason to spy on her, the same goes for every other coun…
> The German Chancellor is not a US Citizen and we have every reason to spy on her, the same goes for every other country in the world. This is so wrong.
But it's reality.
Re: Drop Dropbox
#609Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world. In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they v…
One might say "This is different" because trust in US products and services and tens to hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake. As for the "politics" of it, "Are you, or have you ever been part of the surveillance state?" is not a question about one's political views. It is more like the question in Germany "Were you a Stasi officer or informant?"
To be fair, the Mozilla thing was much more the "Are you now, or have you ever supported a political issue we don't agree with?" in nature. I'm not saying I agree with it, but that's the same type of question...
Re: Drop Dropbox
#610I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I absolutely agree with most of the opposition to Condi Rice wrt the illegal war, warrantless wiretaps, torture, etc. On the other hand, I threw a hissy fit over the opposition to Eich based on his beliefs. I'm not sure how I can oppose Rice while standing up for Eich without inconsistency. Anybody else feel conflicted and have some insight? I'm still probably goin…
So my first thought looking at this was, "Companies in modern times are forced to pay dues of this type as a cost of doing business and not having the government randomly shut them down." In other words, that Dropbox doesn't have much of a choice in the modern business environment. Does anyone in a position to know, by which I mean that they've actually been in politics at the national level, care to tell me whether…
I'm not in a position to know anything, but your question reminds me of the situation when I worked at Lucent in Asia years ago. There were various middle-manager/jr. exec types one would meet occasionally who were obviously useless and non-contributing, in that they had no direct reports and hadn't ever been on a project or sales effort. I was young and stupid so I would ask other people what was up. One time, I got an honest reply, from someone who looked over his shoulder first: "That guy? His uncle is the chair of some Senate committee. AT&T had him on the payroll so now we do. If you know what's good for you, don't ask about him again."