Dropbox is in your Office • Hacker News Board

Re: Dropbox is in your Office

#91

Post by diminoten » Tue, Nov 04, 2014, 5:33 PM UTC

Rumudiez wrote: post #87

cstross wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I looked at the Google Drive terms of service -- which was admittedly years ago (I ought to check again) -- they were basically unacceptable for me because Google were demanding a perpetual non-exclusive copyright license to everything I stored there which would have allowed for unlimited reproduction or use for any purpose Google felt like making of it. It looked like your standard boilerplate land-grab, a…

This comment made me curious. When I went to check the actual terms of service, I found this line: "Some of our Services allow you to upload, submit, store, send or receive content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours." which is suddenly followed up by: "When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through o…

> Google does take a copy of all rights pertinent to the work.

A limited copy, only for use in "operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones."

In other words, you agree to let everything you upload to Google be used for testing.

Anyone who's alienated by this shouldn't be putting content on non-owned servers in the first place. "The Cloud" isn't for your secret documents, it's for your family photos.

Re: Dropbox is in your Office

#92

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 04, 2014, 5:35 PM UTC

cstross wrote: post #78

lentil_soup wrote: post #68

I stopped using Dropbox after the whole Condoleezza Rice thing and have been using a mix of Google Drive and OneDrive and I must say I like them a lot better. They do the same (and more if you use other Google Apps) and prices are cheaper. Are there any benefits to using Dropbox? Are there any other real alternatives you could recommend to give them a try?.

Last time I looked at the Google Drive terms of service -- which was admittedly years ago (I ought to check again) -- they were basically unacceptable for me because Google were demanding a perpetual non-exclusive copyright license to everything I stored there which would have allowed for unlimited reproduction or use for any purpose Google felt like making of it. It looked like your standard boilerplate land-grab, a…

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox is in your Office

#93

Post by maccard » Tue, Nov 04, 2014, 5:35 PM UTC

bhartzer wrote: post #30

So, how long until Microsoft buys Dropbox? Seems kind of strange that they would not be integrating OneDrive into Office rather than Dropbox.

Onedrive is deep in Office. Latest version defaults to trying to get you to save on your OneDrive

Re: Dropbox is in your Office

#94

Post by amelius » Tue, Nov 04, 2014, 5:36 PM UTC

edpichler wrote: post #90

Microsoft integrating with competitor's products, this sounds news to me. A really good move, for both companies.

Makes you wonder why MS doesn't just release a protocol that all cloud service providers can hook into...

Re: Dropbox is in your Office

#95

Post by arrowgunz » Tue, Nov 04, 2014, 5:37 PM UTC

I'm surprised by Microsoft's move here. Why would Microsoft not use OneDrive instead of Dropbox? Dropbox is surely a great product but Microsoft has something similar already. Am I missing something?

Re: Dropbox is in your Office

#96

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 04, 2014, 5:40 PM UTC

Rumudiez wrote: post #87

cstross wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I looked at the Google Drive terms of service -- which was admittedly years ago (I ought to check again) -- they were basically unacceptable for me because Google were demanding a perpetual non-exclusive copyright license to everything I stored there which would have allowed for unlimited reproduction or use for any purpose Google felt like making of it. It looked like your standard boilerplate land-grab, a…

This comment made me curious. When I went to check the actual terms of service, I found this line: "Some of our Services allow you to upload, submit, store, send or receive content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours." which is suddenly followed up by: "When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through o…

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox is in your Office

#97

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 04, 2014, 5:41 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox is in your Office

#98

Post by cstross » Tue, Nov 04, 2014, 5:42 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #91

Rumudiez wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment made me curious. When I went to check the actual terms of service, I found this line: "Some of our Services allow you to upload, submit, store, send or receive content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours." which is suddenly followed up by: "When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through o…

> Google does take a copy of all rights pertinent to the work. A limited copy, only for use in "operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones." In other words, you agree to let everything you upload to Google be used for testing. Anyone who's alienated by this shouldn't be putting content on non-owned servers in the first place. "The Cloud" isn't for your secret documents, it's for your fa…

The show-stoppers are "... promoting and improving our Services, and to develop new ones".

Suppose I use Google Drive to store my current project, a big-ass novel that's going to see simultaneous publication by major publishers in a number of markets around the world. Google could in principle give it away for free to new sign-ups for their service as a promotional goodie.

Or "develop new ones" ... well, we already have Google Books: I am not sanguine about the prospect of a not-yet-published book of mine suddenly showing up in Google Books, or a next-generation incarnation of Google Books, without my say-so (or an agreement to pay royalties, because that's what I earn my living from).

These uses are certainly unlikely but they're not impossible, and that big-ass slab of lawyer-speak in the middle of the ToS is a show-stopper for me. Which is a shame, because if they'd just bothered to specify that the rights are for the limited purpose of [yadda] internal development of new services -- i.e. as test data -- I'd be fine with that.

Dropbox is a paid-for service that specifically supports business uses. It's ToS is acceptable. Google Drive is mostly used for free, and as the old saying puts it: if you aren't paying for the product, you are the product.

Re: Dropbox is in your Office

#99

Post by xorcist » Tue, Nov 04, 2014, 5:42 PM UTC

nathantotten wrote: post #55

simonh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try that line on Bill Gates in his prime.

Things are different around here. Teams are expected to deliver great products on their own, not rely on some artificial lock-in to force adoption. You see this all over - we offer Linux on Azure, you can federate AD with Google Apps, we release dozens of apps for iOS and Android, and we are opening up many many APIs for rich integration. (Opinion my own obviously).

This has been the official line for a while but it has never been that way when it actually matters (ie. Windows and Office).

That's why some people are pleasantly surprised by this.

Re: Dropbox is in your Office

#100

Post by Animats » Tue, Nov 04, 2014, 5:43 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #91

Rumudiez wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment made me curious. When I went to check the actual terms of service, I found this line: "Some of our Services allow you to upload, submit, store, send or receive content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours." which is suddenly followed up by: "When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through o…

> Google does take a copy of all rights pertinent to the work. A limited copy, only for use in "operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones." In other words, you agree to let everything you upload to Google be used for testing. Anyone who's alienated by this shouldn't be putting content on non-owned servers in the first place. "The Cloud" isn't for your secret documents, it's for your fa…

"The Cloud" isn't for your secret documents, it's for your family photos.

Which is why putting your business documents on Dropbox may not be a good idea.

Also, it's kind of slow. Somebody at TechShop accidentally put a Dropbox folder in an Autodesk Inventor search list and slowed down launch of the program by several minutes.