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Windows Terminal Source Code

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Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#121

Post by dundarious »

naikrovek wrote: post #103
markus_zhang wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope someone can take his demo and implement the idea for Windows Terminal. This would prove that such performance boost is indeed doable for a real world production level terminal.

The Terminal team is very aware of this code, and are not able to use it due to how Casey licensed it. They aren't even allowed to look at it. Casey deliberately licensed it as GPL so that Microsoft could not use it, actually. That's his choice, of course. The Terminal team have a path forward to implement strong performance improvements based on techniques like those Casey described, and are working on those improve…

I think Casey's somewhat caustic exasperation can be a major distraction at times, especially if you are exposed to it the first time you listen to him. But I have to say, his frustration is justified. He has valid complaints about almost the entire industry and educational system, so it's not just directed at Microsoft, and certainly not just at the individual grunts working there (almost all of use are grunts). I do know some of the backstory behind Casey starting this reference project/experiment (I won't post the GitHub issue "lore" here, as it'll just create even more of a "he started it, no he did" back-and-forth), so I think there is some mutual animus with these particular grunts, but I think that's not at all interesting, and I don't think knowing the backstory changes anything.

Instead of just personalizing his critique (ignoring that Casey makes it easy to do that), think of it this way: why hasn't Microsoft leadership, running a multi-billion dollar company for decades, already devoted appropriate resources to create an essentially perfect terminal/console, something so discrete and simple and fixed in feature-set?

Also, I don't put much stock in the complaint about Casey's license choice. He made plenty of educational content delving into the design and implementation details, and one of his major points is that non-pessimisation implementations such as his have so little code in the first place.

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#122

Post by jiggawatts »

what-the-grump wrote: post #90
jiggawatts wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every group implements their own telemetry. Every group goes through the same “learning process” of making it asynchronous and correctly dealing with proxies, firewalls, etc… Inevitably mistakes are made that either slow down computers or outright freeze apps that can’t connect to some telemetry endpoint. Security teams around the world feel like they’re holding back the tide with a broom because EVERY piece of softw…

Just FUD? You are running an operating system made by Microsoft, they could monitor how often you click your mouse just like every website on the planet at this point but dont. Boolean telemetry on feature use is somehow the end of the world? Get out.

Look at it this way: PowerShell sends telemetry. The Terminal in which it runs sends Telemetry. The "dotnet core" framework PowerShell uses in turn also sends telemetry. The PowerShell modules you load (from Microsoft!) send telemetry.

In effect, ONE application has at least four independent sets of telemetry.

This is the console, the kind that you would use on servers. High-security servers in DMZs. Servers hosting police records, health records, or even military secrets.

FUD my arse. It's a torrent of information that seeks every crack it can find to "get out", purposefully designed to circumvent mitigations by security teams.

Two examples: Microsoft regularly changes which environment variables disable telemetry. Just about every major release means that I have to check if it is now "DOTNET_TELEMETRY=Off" or "NET_TELEMETRY_CORE=0" or whatever. This isn't an accident. Nobody's "finger slipped". The old telemetry started to tail off and someone "fixed it" in Microsoft to get 100% coverage, against the will of their privacy concious customers.

Similarly, some Windows telemetry uses "microsft.com" instead of "microsoft.com" to bypess firewall rules blocking the latter.

You can't tell me that this is "nothing to worry about" when it feels an awful lot like the enemy is inside the gates and is actively hostile to any measures taken to stop them progressing further into the network.

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#123

Post by naikrovek »

cryptonector wrote: post #112
naikrovek wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? I want the features I use to be maintained. I am dead tired of advanced features being removed from applications I use. With web applications every single round trip to the server is logged, inherently, and there are far more than one round trip to the server than there are page loads, I assure you. So it's ok there? "oh that's just logging, not telemetry." That's what telemetry is! Google and Facebook track…

- it's more work when you're trying to stop data exfiltration / espionnage - privacy -- I've no idea what the telemetry says about me today, and I certainly don't know what they'll make it look for tomorrow - privacy -- even if the telemetry is fine, maybe information about my usage patterns might be more valuable to me than it might seem at first glance - performance -- every app, every library, all sending out tele…

no one cares what you do. telemetry is only viewed in aggregate. it doesn't make sense, nor is it a good use of time, to scrutinize the telemetry of a single user for any reason.

you keep on living in your town where the people don't have fingerprints or names, and the shoes leave no tracks. I'll be over here getting things done, because doing good work is far more important than avoiding being seen.

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#124

Post by justin66 »

naikrovek wrote: post #103
markus_zhang wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope someone can take his demo and implement the idea for Windows Terminal. This would prove that such performance boost is indeed doable for a real world production level terminal.

The Terminal team is very aware of this code, and are not able to use it due to how Casey licensed it. They aren't even allowed to look at it. Casey deliberately licensed it as GPL so that Microsoft could not use it, actually. That's his choice, of course. The Terminal team have a path forward to implement strong performance improvements based on techniques like those Casey described, and are working on those improve…

> They aren't even allowed to look at it. Casey deliberately licensed it as GPL so that Microsoft could not use it, actually.

Why does Microsoft prevent its developers from reading GPL-licensed code?

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#125

Post by [deleted] »

rstat1 wrote: post #86
imwillofficial wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you wouldn’t. It is taking data you haven’t explicitly approved for release. Potential sensitive info. That is the definition of spying. You know most of what an actual spy collects isn’t super secret stuff right? Aggregated unclassified information can still reveal secrets.

What is sensitive about knowing some unidentifiable person clicked a button 10 times? Nothing. Nothing at all.

[deleted]

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#126

Post by a1369209993 »

mortenlarsen wrote: post #71
disruptiveink wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what it once meant. "Spyware" was the term used for any process that called home regarding any information about you, your computer or your usage in the background. Calling home for anything other than "Check for updates" menu items or other actions where calling home was the explicit action the user wanted would get your name tarnished in the media and added to the signature list of software built for the so…

I would call that malware. Telemetry is just malware with a marketing department.

> Telemetry is just malware with a marketing department.

Malware is more broad, and includes things that don't send any information back, like viruses.

Telemetry is spyware with a marketing department.

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#127

Post by judge2020 »

userbinator wrote: post #101
judge2020 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see why the makers of an app aren’t entitled to seeing how the app is used for the people who opt to use it. If I’m using windows terminal, I want them to know how often I use the hot keys, how often I split a terminal vertically then horizontally (alt-shift-d), etc. lest it be removed, since I know they don’t have infinite resources to dedicate to this single project to maintain every feature forever and eve…

I don’t see why the makers of an app aren’t entitled to seeing how the app is used for the people who opt to use it. They are entitled to ABSOLUTELY NOTHING beyond, if it is commercial software, my payment. I want them to know What the fuck happened to just TELLING THEM!? Oh, that's right, they didn't want to listen because they'd rather take complete control of your machine, forcing you into what they want, and mone…

> What the fuck happened to just TELLING THEM!?

People don't say anything. They use the software, and then when features are deprecated they come screaming for you to continue supporting it. It's a waste of resources if they have to create an 'RFC' for every time they want to deprecate a feature due to development workload, when they could just have it report usage of features within the app. It's literally just how many people use specific features in the code they're writing; they're not watching what you type, they're not uploading a log of window titles like early blizzard anticheat software[0]. If you don't want them to be able to make informed decisions about the software they write you shouldn't use it, just create your own and send out a yearly/quarterly survey asking people to tell you what features they use, and see just how many people respond (hint: 30% of users is an unlikely best case scenario for external surveys[1]); hopefully that sample is good enough to drive decision on what features you stop supporting and what features to focus on.

0: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/10/new-gaming-feature-spy...

1: https://peoplepulse.com/resources/useful-articles/survey-res....

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#128

Post by a1369209993 »

ossusermivami wrote: post #51
Lammy wrote: post #6

Here are all the ways it spies on you: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/search?q=Telemetry%3A%... https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/blob/main/src/host/tel...

as a software dev you know that soft anonymous telemetry of how a user use what you do is very valuable to make decision on how to make things.... I wish there was way everywhere to collect with privacy and being accepted by user as not something we want to spie people on... but as always there is (a lot ) of abuse in this area so this may never going to happen

> as a software dev you know that soft anonymous telemetry of how a user use what you do is very valuable to make decision on how to make things....

No, actually, on account of being a software dev, I know that telemetry is actively counterproductive when making decisions on how to make things. It makes your decisions more wrong, not less.

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#129

Post by dboreham »

justin66 wrote: post #124
naikrovek wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Terminal team is very aware of this code, and are not able to use it due to how Casey licensed it. They aren't even allowed to look at it. Casey deliberately licensed it as GPL so that Microsoft could not use it, actually. That's his choice, of course. The Terminal team have a path forward to implement strong performance improvements based on techniques like those Casey described, and are working on those improve…

> They aren't even allowed to look at it. Casey deliberately licensed it as GPL so that Microsoft could not use it, actually. Why does Microsoft prevent its developers from reading GPL-licensed code?

Lawyers concerned in-house code may become virally GPL licensed (I think, it has been a while since I had insight into MS inner workings). Same sort of thing as many/most companies won't allow their employees to look at patents.

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#130

Post by dboreham »

tjoff wrote: post #36
Guillaume86 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just glancing through them it looks like perfectly reasonable telemetry collection, not sure why you call that spying.

Just glancing through them it looks like it wouldn't produce much meaningful data, begs the question - why have it in the first place? Since everyone involved must have known the reactions to it.

In my experience it's often not the case that "everyone involved" knows these things. Quite the contrary actually. Many times I'd been the guy to tap someone on the shoulder (remotely of course) to say hey that's really not something we can do.
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