Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap • Hacker News Board

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#291

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:29 PM UTC

zaik wrote: post #284

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. It was hard enough to migrate people from Whatsapp ( as in, for all my privacy gripes, it is hard to argue that it just works very well in most instances ). It is not like most of my social groups are me-centric, which forces me to pick battles carefully. Now that I moved people to signal, I need to do what I can to try moving signal to my ideal space ( no phone requirement being one of them, 3rd party clients…

Sounds like sunk cost. What are your chances to influence Signal leadership in any way? A better idea would be to use internet standands for messaging to avoid vendor lock-in.

I agree in general, but can you offer a current project that is reasonably secure, relatively easy to install and use and built on actual standards?

That list is still short. I would love to be able to return to pidgin days, where all I had to connect my various accounts >.>

I do not know if the issue is that some the features are just incompatible with standards?

Sadly, the biggest problem is inertia.

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#292

Post by loloquwowndueo » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:31 PM UTC

cyberphobe wrote: post #208

jeroenhd wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The application went down because of a DMCA request. The same would've happened with APT repositories and other distribution systems in that the "official" source would disappear. You could've installed it from an alternative source were that to happen to a simple repository but you still can now. I have plenty of gripes with Snap but this time the Signal team is to blame.

Signal never gave canonical permission to distribute a binary called Signal. Canonical just went ahead and did it anyway. How is this Signal’s fault?

Canonical distributes the snap in the sense of “owns the store and infrastructure” but the publisher is not canonical - it’s snapcrafters which is a group of community volunteers.

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#293

Post by Zak » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:31 PM UTC

capitalsigma wrote: post #226

hammycheesy wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this thread is what convinced me to switch away from Signal and investigate Matrix: https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...

I was ready to grab my pitchfork after that first comment, but farther down: >>Some time ago you federated with CyanogenMod. What has changed since then? >What changed was going through that experience. It seriously degraded the UX for our users and held us back in the development process at many times. I'd estimate that all told, we lost about 6 months to a year of progress. It's something we'll probably never do ag…

There's a time for high velocity, and a time for stability. Federation, at least officially-supported federation is difficult when it's time for high velocity. Having used Signal in 2016 when that thread was written, it makes sense to me that Moxie felt it was a time for high velocity.

I'm not convinced that's still the case in 2022. There are a couple issues I'd like to see polished in the Android client, but I have not noticed bugs or missing features that seem likely to require breaking changes.

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#294

Post by zaik » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:34 PM UTC

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #291

zaik wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like sunk cost. What are your chances to influence Signal leadership in any way? A better idea would be to use internet standands for messaging to avoid vendor lock-in.

I agree in general, but can you offer a current project that is reasonably secure, relatively easy to install and use and built on actual standards? That list is still short. I would love to be able to return to pidgin days, where all I had to connect my various accounts >.> I do not know if the issue is that some the features are just incompatible with standards? Sadly, the biggest problem is inertia.

https://snikket.org/ could be the thing you're looking for.

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#295

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

zaik wrote: post #294

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree in general, but can you offer a current project that is reasonably secure, relatively easy to install and use and built on actual standards? That list is still short. I would love to be able to return to pidgin days, where all I had to connect my various accounts >.> I do not know if the issue is that some the features are just incompatible with standards? Sadly, the biggest problem is inertia.

https://snikket.org/ could be the thing you're looking for.

Thank you. I will test it out. It actually may hit the spot.

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#296

Post by irthomasthomas » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #262

tssva wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The name for the Signal Desktop package is signal-desktop and Signal provides instructions on their website on how to add their deb repository.

Too difficult. Their install instructions are also too complicated and involve reading about 5 lines of comments and 4 shell commands. It should NEVER be more than 1 line of shell or 2 mouse clicks to install anything. This is 2022, not 1995. It's faster to just search for "signal" in the snap store and hit "Install".

It's 5 lines. Took me 30 seconds. Well worth it for the performance gains.

wget -O- https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt/keys.asc | gpg --dearmor > signal-desktop-keyring.gpg && cat signal-desktop-keyring.gpg | sudo tee -a /usr/share/keyrings/signal-desktop-keyring.gpg > /dev/null && echo 'deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/signal-desktop-keyring.gpg] https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt xenial main' |\ sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal-xenial.list && sudo apt update && sudo apt install signal-desktop

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#297

Post by tssva » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

galgalesh wrote: post #267

tssva wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The name for the Signal Desktop package is signal-desktop and Signal provides instructions on their website on how to add their deb repository.

I don't think there is any reason for publishers to force users to download their software from the internet now that the Snap Store and Flathub exists. I've had so many bad experiences with broken third party packages or worse, "installers".

I can think of a lot of reasons why publishers of privacy and security related software would want to direct distribute their software rather than relying on 3rd parties if it is avoidable.

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#298

Post by ryukafalz » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:39 PM UTC

jeroenhd wrote: post #166

ryukafalz wrote: post #16

This kind of thing is vindicating for those of us who stayed away from snaps precisely because the server side is proprietary and the snap tooling only supports Canonical's centralized store. A centralized service being the only option for software distribution is too large of a failure point, no matter who's running it.

The application went down because of a DMCA request. The same would've happened with APT repositories and other distribution systems in that the "official" source would disappear. You could've installed it from an alternative source were that to happen to a simple repository but you still can now. I have plenty of gripes with Snap but this time the Signal team is to blame.

Were that to happen to an official apt repository, you could install from an alternative apt repository. In this case, you can't install from an alternative snap repository. Sure, you can go build a binary yourself and keep it up to date yourself, but that's not really a user-friendly solution in the long term.

Your saving grace here is that Ubuntu as a Debian derivative still supports apt repos, but if snaps were to really gain traction that might not always be the case. A desktop version of Ubuntu Core (akin to Fedora Silverblue for flatpak) would not have this luxury.

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#299

Post by monocasa » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

tingletech wrote: post #259

teraflop wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the issue, it's (at most) a trademark violation instead of a copyright violation, which means the DMCA complaint was filed under false premises.

Copyright license is revoked under AGPL v3 if you violate the AGPL v3 terms. AGPL v3 specifically allows authors to add trademark restrictions that become violating. Don't follow the trademark clauses, lose your copyright license, that becomes a copyright violation, actionable under DMCA.

Signal doesn't appear to have actually added those restrictions to the license though.

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/blob/main/LICENS...

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#300

Post by munk-a » Thu, Nov 03, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

krzyk wrote: post #265

bogota wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn’t change the fact that signal is the best option for my grandma to use still. Moxie is no longer active in signal afaik. This is the new leadership.

Why not use sms? No need to install apps. My parents use that. I use that.

It's extremely expensive outside the US and can't be sent over wifi - so if you're communicating with someone abroad it's not a very convenient option. You're also missing out on E2EE and, lastly, Apple has corrupted the utility of it as a communication method for half of the devices out there.