Why anyone would use a data storage and backup platform that openly does this and many other things for their most intimate personal or most private business data is utterly beyond me. There are many, many zero-knowledge solutions out there, and ones that at least don't openly spy on user data.
Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled
241–249 of 249 posts
Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled
#242Many times on HN, commenters have mocked those who questioned why someone would use Dropbox instead of a method controlled by the user. I guess becausse someone made lots of money from it or it became popular or something. I always found this perplexing because I look at solutions from the perspective of the user, namely, me, not from the perspective of a third party "tech" startup founder. It's insensitive to the pe…
Dropbox is popular because it's super-usable and works super-well. Approximately 0% of ordinary end users want to gaffer-tape something together by hand. (Happy Dropbox user here, but I've been tempted to do it by hand at times myself. If only rsync to s3 was easier ...)
Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'll be honest, I don't really see the complaint here. There is no explicit consent.
It's polite to be transparent about telemetry, but it's not like there is a requirement in any regulation anywhere to ask for explicit consent (e.g. similar to how GDPR works when PII is involved)
There might not be a hard legal requirement, but it's still a valid complaint.
There's no legal requirement for someone to be polite to a cashier at a supermarket, yet complaining when somebody is an asshole is still a valid complaint.
Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
Closed source proprietary software is not "the beauty of open source".
The SyncThing developers wrote on their website that they don't offer an iOS client because Apple doesn't properly support background processing. It seems that the SyncThing developers don't care about iOS. But here's the beauty of Open Source: anyone can download the source code and try to get it running on iOS. Now Möbius found a way to get SyncThing kinda working on iOS, and for a small fee you can install it on y…
Yes, many proprietary software developers who don't respect the freedoms of users make money piggybacking (some might say parasitically) on open source software releases.
I'm not sure what this has to do with open source, however. These people aren't even part of the free software community, as they obviously don't care about software freedom.
Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
The SyncThing developers wrote on their website that they don't offer an iOS client because Apple doesn't properly support background processing. It seems that the SyncThing developers don't care about iOS. But here's the beauty of Open Source: anyone can download the source code and try to get it running on iOS. Now Möbius found a way to get SyncThing kinda working on iOS, and for a small fee you can install it on y…
Yes, many proprietary software developers who don't respect the freedoms of users make money piggybacking (some might say parasitically) on open source software releases. I'm not sure what this has to do with open source, however. These people aren't even part of the free software community, as they obviously don't care about software freedom.
It sounds like you are confusing open source with copyleft.
Copyleft is a great thing, but it's also fine for things to be open source and not copyleft.
I can use syncthing because of Mobius. If Mobius did not exist, I would either have to pay a bounty to get someone to port Syncthing or use something else. That bounty is more than $6.
You can still port syncthing yourself. Mobius is not stopping you! You'll have to pay Apple $99 a year, and you will have to handle the app store process, and all - but you can do it. Neither syncthing nor Mobius will stop you.
Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, many proprietary software developers who don't respect the freedoms of users make money piggybacking (some might say parasitically) on open source software releases. I'm not sure what this has to do with open source, however. These people aren't even part of the free software community, as they obviously don't care about software freedom.
It sounds like you are confusing open source with copyleft. Copyleft is a great thing, but it's also fine for things to be open source and not copyleft. I can use syncthing because of Mobius. If Mobius did not exist, I would either have to pay a bounty to get someone to port Syncthing or use something else. That bounty is more than $6. You can still port syncthing yourself. Mobius is not stopping you! You'll have to…
Free software has nothing to do with copyleft. Neither does respecting the freedoms
of the user.
I release all my software into the public domain; it's not copyleft at all, but it is free software, and it does respect the freedoms of the user.
Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like you are confusing open source with copyleft. Copyleft is a great thing, but it's also fine for things to be open source and not copyleft. I can use syncthing because of Mobius. If Mobius did not exist, I would either have to pay a bounty to get someone to port Syncthing or use something else. That bounty is more than $6. You can still port syncthing yourself. Mobius is not stopping you! You'll have to…
Free software has nothing to do with copyleft. Neither does respecting the freedoms of the user. I release all my software into the public domain; it's not copyleft at all, but it is free software, and it does respect the freedoms of the user.
That's very nice of you.
Why don't you make a free iOS version of SyncThing? There's a lot of people out there who would appreciate it.
Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
Error reporting is far from being redundant though, it's literally 1 step away from being 'logically necessary'
I would gladly report all the bugs myself manually, with all the details, specifics and reproduction steps. The only problem is 85% of bugs I ever reported either got "won't fix" status (mostly in free software) or just been silently forgotten (mostly at work) or got a "pay first, then ask for fixes" response (when it was about shareware). So I lost enthusiasm. Free software bug reporting also often has a problem of…
You wouldn't though. Because a lot of different crashes (not to mention warnings) are handled automatically and are restarted before you even notice.
If you have android, just connect it to pc, open logcat and filter for errors only. There are still messages every couple seccond. You would get frustrated even if those were simply showed to You as a user, not to mention actively going out of your way to report them
Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Free software has nothing to do with copyleft. Neither does respecting the freedoms of the user. I release all my software into the public domain; it's not copyleft at all, but it is free software, and it does respect the freedoms of the user.
That's very nice of you. Why don't you make a free iOS version of SyncThing? There's a lot of people out there who would appreciate it.
Joining the Apple developer program requires that you dox yourself to Apple, and ties that government identity to device hardware serial numbers. I buy my Apple devices for cash and use each one with a unique disposable Apple ID created with a burner email address and burner prepaid phone number.
This is also one of the reasons I can't pay for IAP cancer - attaching payment methods links identity to the Apple ID and hardware serial number.