11 ms·

The Dropbox Foundation

213 points by mdu96 9y ago

smackay 9y ago
Open Question: What's the consensus of opinion regarding Dropbox while they still have Condoleezza Rice on the Board of Directors? Personally, I want to love them. I think Drew has built up a decent company. However choosing Dr. Rice for the board, although she probably brings a lot to the table, was an unforgivable act. The creation of the foundation is laudable but feels a bit of a band-aid to solving their image problem. The choice of War Child UK just rubs more salt into the wound for me however.
- shaki-dora 9y ago
  I'm as critical of the Bush administration as anyone. But I think Condoleezza Rice is just too complicated a person to place her on a one-dimensional "evil scale" and boycott everything she touches.
  - philliphaydon 9y ago
    I don’t trust her at all. I have more trust in Microsoft than her so I moved to OneDrive the moment it was announced she was joining Dropbox.
    - shaki-dora 9y ago
      I'm having trouble finding a single position of her that I agree with. I'm actually listening to Brahms now, to see if maybe her choice of favourite composer is at least sensible. But I do get the impression that she's the kind of person that one can have a deep discussion with even while disagreeing; that her positions, while wrong, are within the realm of possibilities, especially given her rather impressive biography. In other words: she's frequently wrong, but she's not batshit crazy and filled with hate like the current administration. On a more practical note: I doubt that a board member has the power needed to single-handedly set company policy in the way implied by the criticism. If anything, her appointment is more of a symptom of the problem. I guess it is cooperation with the national security apparatus people are worried about? With the increased scrutiny post-Snowden, especially in the EU, I'm not sure how much leeway companies have left, anyway. Yes: Dropbox almost certainly cooperates when presented with a "National Security Letter". But I would take Rice to actually be more concerned about limiting her liability than, say, Yahoo, and push back at requests that are in legally grey areas.
      - gurkendoktor 9y ago
        > In other words: she's frequently wrong, but she's not batshit crazy and filled with hate like the current administration. Is it really better if an intelligent person willingly helps start the Iraq war than if an hateful person does so on a whim? I find it hard to decide what's scarier. I've stopped using Dropbox when they hired her, but not because I think there are practical implications for users. Rather, I wish that the IT community would finally, please, start thinking about ethics.
        rocqua 9y ago
        Yes, it is a lot better if an intelligent person willingly helps start that war. Intelligent people tend to be rational; they can be reasoned with. This means you might be able to convince them to change their mind. You can talk with them and figure out what is going on. You can explain to them why you disagree with their actions. The real distinction that matters is how stubborn someone is, or how convinced they are that they are right. One might be stubborn out of hate, one might be stubborn out of pride (I loudly claimed X, so I must to all I can to show X is right, no matter what happens), or one might be stubborn out of 'true belief'. Such stubbornness is scary. Notably, it is scary no matter whether you agree with them or not. Such stubbornness might help accelerate change if they are exactly right, but there is no room for error.
        gurkendoktor 9y ago
        Good point about stubbornness, but rationality is not the same as benevolence. You can have rational, even entertaining discussions about the way in which you ruin things for your own self-interest. I have a hard time believing that anyone in the Bush administration was acting in good faith and invaded a country because nobody raised a solid counter-argument in time.
        rocqua 9y ago
        Even people acting out of self-interest can be reasoned or at least bargained with. You can't do that with a 'true believer'.
    - bad_user 9y ago
      Moving to Microsoft due to Condoleezza Rice being hired by Dropbox makes absolutely no sense. I'm not a US citizen, so I don't know about Condoleezza Rice and personally I don't care that much. But I do care about: 1. the Halloween documents 2. their NSA partnership 3. them being happy about censoring content on China's whims, which allegedly is also affecting international users 4. Windows 10 being a privacy nightmare 5. their ongoing racketeering practices, forcing a tax on Android phone makers for patents Yes, please lecture me on how other companies are doing it too, blah, blah, I don't care as these are things that have a measurable impact on my everyday life. Don't get me wrong, I'm actually not boycotting Microsoft, I just choose not to use them given the choice. And I would use OneDrive given its price, if it would be reliable, but it isn't. I tried it multiple times actually, always noticing unacceptable limitations or bugs. And so your choice is dubious at best.
      - acct1771 9y ago
        Halloween documents?
        bad_user 9y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents
        oblio 9y ago
        That was in 1998, give it a break. I'm not saying that they're perfect now, but they're definitely better :)
        bad_user 9y ago
        Oh right, the "Microsoft changed" meme. 4 out of those 5 points are ongoing and highlight that in fact Microsoft has not changed, following the same pattern. Plus I don't really care that it happened in 1998. Can't forgive that. Sorry. In society when people hurt other people, usually relationships get broken indefinitely, we don't really forgive unless it's about family or close friends. I don't see why companies should be any less different. As they say, don't do the crime, if you can't do the time. Maybe companies should think twice before doing shit.
- probably_wrong 9y ago
  I don't think there's a consensus. I've stopped using Dropbox due to that choice, but their success tells me that this is not too problematic for most of their users. I think it's one of those things were the product is just too good for people to quit, even if they disagree with the business practices.
  - mateuszf 9y ago
    > I think it's one of those things were the product is just too good for people to quit, even if they disagree with the business practices. This or most users don't even know/care about the company / software. They just installed it to solve a problem and it works fine
    - wepple 9y ago
      This may be highly anecdotal, but I’m a Dropbox user, live in the US, read HN probably daily, and still don’t know much about Condoleeza Rice or why it would be good or bad having her on the board. Very much installed it to solve a problem and it works fine (But now I guess i have some reading to do)
      - xevb3k 9y ago
        Some information is available here: http://www.drop-dropbox.com http://www.drop-dropbox.com
    - NullPrefix 9y ago
      How would that be different from Mozilla's Brendan?
      - mikepurvis 9y ago
        I'm not a Dropbox user, so I don't really have a stake in this fight, but I think it's pretty different. Eich using his personal resources to support a personal social/political cause is not at all the same as being a politician who was part of the senior executive circle of the Bush administration.
- cjoy 9y ago
  Dropbox provides great value and I dearly miss it, but I can not support a company that willingly hosts a person so closely connected to illegitemate war and crimes against humanity. I doubt this has significance for Dropbox. It is more a matter of personal moral hygiene.
- LaGrange 9y ago
  > Open Question: What's the consensus of opinion regarding Dropbox while they still have Condoleezza Rice on the Board of Directors? There is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism. While I don't think this is excuse to just not give a flying f at all whatsoever, it sets a general expectation — I'm not going to pick what's worse, Rice in the Board of Directors or an NSA partnership or a plan to essentially _become_ the NSA, but for advertising. One day I'll stop being lazy and make something that's independent from cloud providers (and thus their ethical issues) for myself. It will probably be less power efficient and thus contribute more to global warming, but at least I'll have tried - but, still, there is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism.
  - r3bl 9y ago
    There is no ethical consumption, as in consuming only from ethical companies. But come on, almost each and every one of us has a company (online and offline) that we're desperately trying to avoid whenever possible. Reasons for that could be different, but ethical reasons are completely legit ones. The main reason why I have a personal Nextcloud server is because I don't want to deal with considering pros and cons when choosing where to stash my most valuable data (like cloud service, calendar, contact lists, to-do lists etc). Sure, it takes me maybe an hour per month to keep it updated, but constantly considering different options would take me even more. Sure, paying for a dedicated server takes a chunk of my monthly income, but it would also add up to pay monthly subscriptions to other bullshit SaaS, because free editions rarely allow a consumer to accomplish most of the things[0]. And as far as the climate change is concerned, my hosting provider is powered by a hydro plant. My hosting provider is also not from a five-eye country (nor does my everyday traffic reach any of those when traveling to my server and back) and is in the EU jurisdictions. I don't really have to worry about NSA that much, as long as I trust my end devices not making those connections with my most sensitive types of data. With all that said, I do feel like an ethical consumer online. There are some hints of it outside the keyboard as well. Heck, I'm 23 and still haven't learned how to drive because it isn't viable to have an electric car inside of my country, and I prefer public transport over taxis and Uber. [0] Shoutout to Pocket, the only SaaS I could think of that's completely usable in the free version, and becomes even more usable when paying for a premium.
- gadders 9y ago
  I think she is a remarkable woman, and anything that increases minority representation on company boards should be applauded.
- VMG 9y ago
  There is no consensus opinion. The anti-war movement died with Obama's election. Since the consensus is that Trump worst president ever, actual crimes of previous administrations are irrelevant. Calling a country a shithole is worse than waging war against it, apparently.
- leshow 9y ago
  Why? It has nothing to do with where you host your files. You just seem to be making a knee-jerk partisan reaction.
matt4077 9y ago
So I guess they'll be sued any second now? Because people on the internet keep telling me companies can't just give away shareholders' money? /s
- rocqua 9y ago
  They aren't a public company. If they were, this might indeed cause some activist investors to take measures that might include lawsuits.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    They obviously do have shareholders, though. And I doubt that they got explicit consent from every single employee that owns shares or options, and every single investor. I've also never seen the argument made with explicit reference to publicly traded corporations only. They also filed for IPO in January. I doubt that they will shut down the Foundation a few months after announcing it when they go public.
    - rocqua 9y ago
      There is less of a chance of activist funds buying up your stock when you aren't public. This lessens the effect of activist investors. Most shareholders don't care about the 'Do everything to make me money short term'. Some activist investors do. Those are easier to keep out if you are a private company.
estsauver 9y ago
This is really great to see unconditional grants! It would be really wonderful to see this catch on as a norm for aide. It seems a lot of time the specific conditions that are attached to a grant are used as a way of trying to hedge against the PR risk for a foundation/nonprofit that a grant was used improperly. I don't think empirically it's that effective of a hedge against money being used poorly anyway, organizations that will squander money will squander money. It's also super exciting to see that they're offering in-kind support from employees as well. We're working in rural Kenya where the internet can be really challenging and I know that we'd be incredibly excited to work with some of Dropboxes team on sync'ing problems. My impression has been that the reliability and seamlessness of sync'ing at Dropbox has been primarily driven by some absolutely world class distributed systems talent, and it'd be phenomenal for organizations to get access to those employees/teams.
pentae 9y ago
I suppose when you're not able to give an unwavering commitment to protecting your customers data, coming up with a completely unrelated corporate social responsibility plan like this makes sense.
- godzillabrennus 9y ago
  This. It's amazing how many big companies use Dropbox with how limited their commitment to protecting customer data has been.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    I suspect that corporations have much more leverage in this than consumers...
    - littlestymaar 9y ago
      For US corps maybe, but many foreign companies also use dropbox even though they have little to no leverage in the US.
  - idrios 9y ago
    Clarification needed. When you say their commitment has been limited, do you mean they have done things that go contrary to protecting data (like selling user data to ad companies, or handing user data to government agencies when requested) or that they haven't actively taken a stance for protecting customer data (such as duckduckgo's promise not to track you, or Wikipedia's promise to stay donation-based).
- laurent123456 9y ago
  In which way is Dropbox data not protected? Do you mean they tend to lose files?
  - older 9y ago
    Dropbox doesn't encrypt your data. Compare them [1] and SpiderOak [2] for example. [1] https://www.dropbox.com/security https://www.dropbox.com/security [2] https://spideroak.com/no-knowledge/ https://spideroak.com/no-knowledge/
JepZ 9y ago
> The Foundation will instead offer flexible, unrestricted grants that our partners can use to meet their greatest needs. When you read that and have the recent Oxfam scandal in mind, it creates some interesting pictures. Btw. I don't want to criticize the decision for unrestricted grants in any way, as I don't have enough expertise in the field.
- potatoyogurt 9y ago
  There's always a risk when you give money that it will be used in a way you don't approve of or that is generally unsavory. Restrictions are one way to try to control that, but they're not foolproof. I think ultimately if you're willing to give money to an organization (and your goal is not just to get a building built and named after you), you should feel comfortable enough with its management that you're willing to trust it to make the right choices. If management won't make the right choices, your money will probably be better off elsewhere. There are exceptions for organizations that are large enough to have multiple organizations nested under them with competing or independent goals (such as a university or a large charity with independent projects targeting different issues).
  - colejohnson66 9y ago
    > There's always a risk when you give money that it will be used in a way you don't approve of... I’ve seen people on the left get upset when they find out that the ACLU defends the rights of people on the right in addition to those on the left.
    - sincerely 9y ago
      In the wake of Charlottesville I recall some ACLU workers resigning.
- protomyth 9y ago
  Unrestricted grants are a blessing when you deal with a world that will let you buy a student a computer but not the desk to set it on.
jxub 9y ago
Looks like a PR stunt to jack up the hype before going public.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  I've always felt strange metaphorically waving the flag of my employer while doing charity work. I don't help people because of my paycheck, so it seems inaccurate, at least, to brand my humanity with the name on my paycheck.
ktpsns 9y ago
A foundation with 20M$ and these ambitious goals is a gift for the society. However, it is also the typical American way of company-society interaction. The actually intended way is called "paxing taxes". Dropbox, like a good part of the US tech companies, has it's European site in Ireland, a country known for its low tax rates [1]. [1] https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator/dropbox-confirms-irish-tax-dodge/news-story/1b9ac0b9df2139eb4d42d00c4bf21969 https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator...
- koolba 9y ago
  > A foundation with 20M$ and these ambitious goals is a gift for the society. However, it is also the typical American way of company-society interaction. The actually intended way is called "paxing taxes". Not really. It depends on what you think taxes should be paying for. If you think they should cover essential services that can't be taken care of by the private sector (ex: roads, police, national defense) then lower taxes and private sector philanthropic spending is a better choice. It removes the particularly heinous problem of government officials spending the public's money on things the public doesn't actually want them to spend it on. The private sector has no such issues as by definition they're spending their own money.
  - rb666 9y ago
    All the things you mentioned can also be handled by the private sector. Not a good idea, however. Also very typical American, not considering healthcare an essential service, lol.
    - muninn_ 9y ago
      Sorry but this is completely ridiculous and disingenuously undermines the OP's very good point. First, even if some Americans don't support universal healthcare, that doesn't mean that all Americans don't support it. Even if they do, there are arguments to be made both for and against universal healthcare. I happen to fall on the pro-universal healthcare side, but it's certainly not without drawbacks. Second, the OP wasn't suggesting that we should have privately funded militaries and private roads, but that one possible government outcome is the government paying for such things while leaving other items (maybe donations to scientific foundations as an example) up to private sector interests. If you're Dropbox, and you strongly believe in a cause and you want to support that cause, it makes far more sense to withhold taxes (so far as it is legal to do so) that you have no control over and set up a foundation to pursue the cause that you're aiming for. Not only can you ensure that money goes toward that cause, but you're nearly guaranteed to do a better job than the government which is, by it's very nature, subject to the whims and opinions of people who may not share your view on the use of your money and less efficient in the handling of your money. I have a big problem with American companies not paying their fair share of taxes, and even more so with the obscene wealth inequality that has come to dominate the last few decades, but your post here is a drive-by at a reasonable discussion point, followed by a trite comment about Americans for no reason other than to stir up trouble.
fiatjaf 9y ago
Wasn't Dropbox "a feature, not a product"?
- gpvos 9y ago
  That's what Steve Jobs said. He can be wrong.
  - mmjaa 9y ago
    Dropbox should've been a feature of the operating system, but it isn't, because OS vendors have convinced themselves there's nothing left to do since the Internet is just going to solve all the hard problems now. Seriously, I rue the day someone decided not to build-in such features as Internet-wide file sharing into my operating system, giving me full control over my content - subjugating me, instead, to the whims of yet another un-trustable third party.
    - fiatjaf 9y ago
      Dropbox is a company that hosts your files. If it was a feature of the operating system, who would host the files?
      - glenneroo 9y ago
        Microsoft, Apple and Google (among others) all offer cloud-based hosting.
      - mmjaa 9y ago
        There are no good reasons I couldn't host my own files, with my own bandwidth, on my perfectly cromulant server/mobile device. The only issue is, it hasn't been considered of any importance to maintain user agency; better we steal the users agency over their data/computers, put it out 'in the cloud', and get them addicted/dependent on third parties, than to make the operating system deliver similar levels of service, at scale, at the local level. What if, instead of getting all hot and bothered about browsers, OS-teams instead focused on making source-/locality-/ownership- of user-generated data, within the context of the local machine, available at scale? Like, gimme IPFS open and operating by default, in my regular distro, and I'll never have to host a site on a cloud server again... Todays computers/bandwidth/connectivity can handle the load.
mful 9y ago
> A big part of our mission has always been helping our users achieve their missions. Do these types of PR lines from companies that make productivity tools actually resonate with folks? At Dropbox’s scale, they probably materially increase economic productivity, which is great. Why push some narrative about helping aid workers achieve their mission? This sort of language seems especially strange to me when announcing something that actually can make significant social impact. The juxtaposition between the Dropbox product and the work of this foundation jumps off the page. Maybe it’s just me as I get older, but it seems so patronizing. Anywho, this seems like a great project — great work DB, PR quibbles aside :)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- matt4077 9y ago
  The corporate language is off-putting, indeed. But what they're (trying to) say actually makes sense: Dropbox has seen some of its greatest success from people using it in ways they have not specifically foreseen. People used it for photo sharing, even though it wasn't advertised as a "photo-sharing tool". That ties in well with their policy of making unrestricted grants, which similarly aims to delegate decision-making downstream.
- frabbit 9y ago
  > Do these types of PR lines from companies that make productivity tools actually resonate with folks? In the case of Dropbox, for me, it comes across as cynical virtue signalling. If Dropbox were funding the EFF or the FSF or even dropping some funding to CCC or FOSDEM then I could start to overlook their ties with the sort of people¹ that create clients for Warchild. As it is this stuff comes across as pretty horrible, and I keep on thinking about Dropbox as being part of a network of businesses closely tied to the military that create the problems that they now care about. I realize I am not their target audience, but this PR has the effect of making me dislike them more than ever. 1. http://www.drop-dropbox.com/ http://www.drop-dropbox.com/
  - shaki-dora 9y ago
montrose 9y ago
It is huge that they give unrestricted grants. I've been involved in the nonprofit world a lot in the last few years, and the most surprising thing I've learned is how depressingly common restricted grants are. Restricted grants are when you give money to a nonprofit to do what you want, rather than what they want. Usually this is some highly visible thing that the donor can then claim credit for. These projects are almost never what the nonprofit would have chosen to do themselves. Often they damage the nonprofit significantly. I was talking to a nonprofit a few months ago that had branches in two different cities quite far apart. I asked them why they'd chosen to expand to another city rather than expand in the city they were in. Wasn't it a distraction? They said it was, but that they'd gotten a restricted grant to open a branch in the new city. The less powerful nonprofits have no choice but to take such money. And they don't dare complain about it, which is why you've never heard about this issue. Exactly the opposite, in fact: they have to issue press releases lauding the generosity of the donors. Which then perpetuates the problem, by making it seem to future donors that restricted grants are how you're supposed to do charity. I don't know how Dropbox figured out that they should do unrestricted grants. It's a remarkably sophisticated insight for beginners.
- srean 9y ago
  > Restricted grants are when you give money to a nonprofit to do what you want, rather than what they want. Spot on. The picture is often worse than the one you have painted -- Hey there, here's a few million dollars to help your country tackle AIDS. BTW, you can only spend it on drugs manufactured by US pharma. At that stage its creative accounting to route tax money to your base of choice, with PR for free. Works the same for defense related grants.
- dayaz36 9y ago
  This is exactly what's happening with Khan Academy. Not only they get restricted grants from Google but Eric Schmidt (among others) is on their board directly influencing the direction of the organization
  - heyoni 9y ago
    In a bad way?
staticelf 9y ago
> For the past 10 years, we’ve seen the impact our products can have when they free up our time to focus on work that truly matters. Medical researchers share data sets to develop vaccines. Musicians compose scores. Aid workers access and coordinate information from the field. Is it just me that think this is very cringy and reminds me of https://youtu.be/J-GVd_HLlps?t=31s https://youtu.be/J-GVd_HLlps?t=31s I like that they help fund stuff but I just think the statement is kind of hilarious.
- throwawayyx96 9y ago
  Dropbox following the tried and true path of taking credit for tangentially "enabling" the contributions of others. Kind of reminiscent of Apple's statements about the massive impact of their company on the economy and job creation in other industries. Heck, as long as the bar is this low, Microsoft could write a similar sounding PR statement to put some lipstick on their file system patent trolling - "At Microsoft, we have an unwavering commitment to the fight against poverty. Our storage technology has been crucial to the success of the one laptop per child program."
megous 9y ago
I'm glad they chose to support warchild. It will not stop Russian and Syrian governments from murdering and maiming ~50-100 children daily these days, while trying to replay Grozny scenario in Ghouta, but anything that helps at least those that manage to run away south to Jordan and not freeze to death on their way is great.
forgotmypw 9y ago
No JS = blank page? Tab closed.
braderhart 9y ago
I'll take an open source client and changelogs with each release please.
jimnotgym 9y ago
<bus joke>You wait all day for a Foundation to come along...https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16431800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16431800 </bus joke>

213 points by mdu96 9y ago

Open Question: What's the consensus of opinion regarding Dropbox while they still have Condoleezza Rice on the Board of Directors? Personally, I want to love them. I think Drew has built up a decent company. However choosing Dr. Rice for the board, although she probably brings a lot to the table, was an unforgivable act. The creation of the foundation is laudable but feels a bit of a band-aid to solving their image problem. The choice of War Child UK just rubs more salt into the wound for me however.

shaki-dora 9y ago
I'm as critical of the Bush administration as anyone. But I think Condoleezza Rice is just too complicated a person to place her on a one-dimensional "evil scale" and boycott everything she touches.
- philliphaydon 9y ago
  I don’t trust her at all. I have more trust in Microsoft than her so I moved to OneDrive the moment it was announced she was joining Dropbox.
  - shaki-dora 9y ago
    I'm having trouble finding a single position of her that I agree with. I'm actually listening to Brahms now, to see if maybe her choice of favourite composer is at least sensible. But I do get the impression that she's the kind of person that one can have a deep discussion with even while disagreeing; that her positions, while wrong, are within the realm of possibilities, especially given her rather impressive biography. In other words: she's frequently wrong, but she's not batshit crazy and filled with hate like the current administration. On a more practical note: I doubt that a board member has the power needed to single-handedly set company policy in the way implied by the criticism. If anything, her appointment is more of a symptom of the problem. I guess it is cooperation with the national security apparatus people are worried about? With the increased scrutiny post-Snowden, especially in the EU, I'm not sure how much leeway companies have left, anyway. Yes: Dropbox almost certainly cooperates when presented with a "National Security Letter". But I would take Rice to actually be more concerned about limiting her liability than, say, Yahoo, and push back at requests that are in legally grey areas.
    - gurkendoktor 9y ago
      > In other words: she's frequently wrong, but she's not batshit crazy and filled with hate like the current administration. Is it really better if an intelligent person willingly helps start the Iraq war than if an hateful person does so on a whim? I find it hard to decide what's scarier. I've stopped using Dropbox when they hired her, but not because I think there are practical implications for users. Rather, I wish that the IT community would finally, please, start thinking about ethics.
      - rocqua 9y ago
        Yes, it is a lot better if an intelligent person willingly helps start that war. Intelligent people tend to be rational; they can be reasoned with. This means you might be able to convince them to change their mind. You can talk with them and figure out what is going on. You can explain to them why you disagree with their actions. The real distinction that matters is how stubborn someone is, or how convinced they are that they are right. One might be stubborn out of hate, one might be stubborn out of pride (I loudly claimed X, so I must to all I can to show X is right, no matter what happens), or one might be stubborn out of 'true belief'. Such stubbornness is scary. Notably, it is scary no matter whether you agree with them or not. Such stubbornness might help accelerate change if they are exactly right, but there is no room for error.
        gurkendoktor 9y ago
        Good point about stubbornness, but rationality is not the same as benevolence. You can have rational, even entertaining discussions about the way in which you ruin things for your own self-interest. I have a hard time believing that anyone in the Bush administration was acting in good faith and invaded a country because nobody raised a solid counter-argument in time.
        rocqua 9y ago
        Even people acting out of self-interest can be reasoned or at least bargained with. You can't do that with a 'true believer'.
  - bad_user 9y ago
    Moving to Microsoft due to Condoleezza Rice being hired by Dropbox makes absolutely no sense. I'm not a US citizen, so I don't know about Condoleezza Rice and personally I don't care that much. But I do care about: 1. the Halloween documents 2. their NSA partnership 3. them being happy about censoring content on China's whims, which allegedly is also affecting international users 4. Windows 10 being a privacy nightmare 5. their ongoing racketeering practices, forcing a tax on Android phone makers for patents Yes, please lecture me on how other companies are doing it too, blah, blah, I don't care as these are things that have a measurable impact on my everyday life. Don't get me wrong, I'm actually not boycotting Microsoft, I just choose not to use them given the choice. And I would use OneDrive given its price, if it would be reliable, but it isn't. I tried it multiple times actually, always noticing unacceptable limitations or bugs. And so your choice is dubious at best.
    - acct1771 9y ago
      Halloween documents?
      - bad_user 9y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents
        oblio 9y ago
        That was in 1998, give it a break. I'm not saying that they're perfect now, but they're definitely better :)
        bad_user 9y ago
        Oh right, the "Microsoft changed" meme. 4 out of those 5 points are ongoing and highlight that in fact Microsoft has not changed, following the same pattern. Plus I don't really care that it happened in 1998. Can't forgive that. Sorry. In society when people hurt other people, usually relationships get broken indefinitely, we don't really forgive unless it's about family or close friends. I don't see why companies should be any less different. As they say, don't do the crime, if you can't do the time. Maybe companies should think twice before doing shit.
probably_wrong 9y ago
I don't think there's a consensus. I've stopped using Dropbox due to that choice, but their success tells me that this is not too problematic for most of their users. I think it's one of those things were the product is just too good for people to quit, even if they disagree with the business practices.
- mateuszf 9y ago
  > I think it's one of those things were the product is just too good for people to quit, even if they disagree with the business practices. This or most users don't even know/care about the company / software. They just installed it to solve a problem and it works fine
  - wepple 9y ago
    This may be highly anecdotal, but I’m a Dropbox user, live in the US, read HN probably daily, and still don’t know much about Condoleeza Rice or why it would be good or bad having her on the board. Very much installed it to solve a problem and it works fine (But now I guess i have some reading to do)
    - xevb3k 9y ago
      Some information is available here: http://www.drop-dropbox.com http://www.drop-dropbox.com
  - NullPrefix 9y ago
    How would that be different from Mozilla's Brendan?
    - mikepurvis 9y ago
      I'm not a Dropbox user, so I don't really have a stake in this fight, but I think it's pretty different. Eich using his personal resources to support a personal social/political cause is not at all the same as being a politician who was part of the senior executive circle of the Bush administration.
cjoy 9y ago
Dropbox provides great value and I dearly miss it, but I can not support a company that willingly hosts a person so closely connected to illegitemate war and crimes against humanity. I doubt this has significance for Dropbox. It is more a matter of personal moral hygiene.
LaGrange 9y ago
> Open Question: What's the consensus of opinion regarding Dropbox while they still have Condoleezza Rice on the Board of Directors? There is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism. While I don't think this is excuse to just not give a flying f at all whatsoever, it sets a general expectation — I'm not going to pick what's worse, Rice in the Board of Directors or an NSA partnership or a plan to essentially _become_ the NSA, but for advertising. One day I'll stop being lazy and make something that's independent from cloud providers (and thus their ethical issues) for myself. It will probably be less power efficient and thus contribute more to global warming, but at least I'll have tried - but, still, there is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism.
- r3bl 9y ago
  There is no ethical consumption, as in consuming only from ethical companies. But come on, almost each and every one of us has a company (online and offline) that we're desperately trying to avoid whenever possible. Reasons for that could be different, but ethical reasons are completely legit ones. The main reason why I have a personal Nextcloud server is because I don't want to deal with considering pros and cons when choosing where to stash my most valuable data (like cloud service, calendar, contact lists, to-do lists etc). Sure, it takes me maybe an hour per month to keep it updated, but constantly considering different options would take me even more. Sure, paying for a dedicated server takes a chunk of my monthly income, but it would also add up to pay monthly subscriptions to other bullshit SaaS, because free editions rarely allow a consumer to accomplish most of the things[0]. And as far as the climate change is concerned, my hosting provider is powered by a hydro plant. My hosting provider is also not from a five-eye country (nor does my everyday traffic reach any of those when traveling to my server and back) and is in the EU jurisdictions. I don't really have to worry about NSA that much, as long as I trust my end devices not making those connections with my most sensitive types of data. With all that said, I do feel like an ethical consumer online. There are some hints of it outside the keyboard as well. Heck, I'm 23 and still haven't learned how to drive because it isn't viable to have an electric car inside of my country, and I prefer public transport over taxis and Uber. [0] Shoutout to Pocket, the only SaaS I could think of that's completely usable in the free version, and becomes even more usable when paying for a premium.
gadders 9y ago
I think she is a remarkable woman, and anything that increases minority representation on company boards should be applauded.
VMG 9y ago
There is no consensus opinion. The anti-war movement died with Obama's election. Since the consensus is that Trump worst president ever, actual crimes of previous administrations are irrelevant. Calling a country a shithole is worse than waging war against it, apparently.
leshow 9y ago
Why? It has nothing to do with where you host your files. You just seem to be making a knee-jerk partisan reaction.

matt4077 9y ago

So I guess they'll be sued any second now? Because people on the internet keep telling me companies can't just give away shareholders' money? /s

rocqua 9y ago
They aren't a public company. If they were, this might indeed cause some activist investors to take measures that might include lawsuits.
- matt4077 9y ago
  They obviously do have shareholders, though. And I doubt that they got explicit consent from every single employee that owns shares or options, and every single investor. I've also never seen the argument made with explicit reference to publicly traded corporations only. They also filed for IPO in January. I doubt that they will shut down the Foundation a few months after announcing it when they go public.
  - rocqua 9y ago
    There is less of a chance of activist funds buying up your stock when you aren't public. This lessens the effect of activist investors. Most shareholders don't care about the 'Do everything to make me money short term'. Some activist investors do. Those are easier to keep out if you are a private company.

estsauver 9y ago

This is really great to see unconditional grants! It would be really wonderful to see this catch on as a norm for aide. It seems a lot of time the specific conditions that are attached to a grant are used as a way of trying to hedge against the PR risk for a foundation/nonprofit that a grant was used improperly. I don't think empirically it's that effective of a hedge against money being used poorly anyway, organizations that will squander money will squander money. It's also super exciting to see that they're offering in-kind support from employees as well. We're working in rural Kenya where the internet can be really challenging and I know that we'd be incredibly excited to work with some of Dropboxes team on sync'ing problems. My impression has been that the reliability and seamlessness of sync'ing at Dropbox has been primarily driven by some absolutely world class distributed systems talent, and it'd be phenomenal for organizations to get access to those employees/teams.

pentae 9y ago

I suppose when you're not able to give an unwavering commitment to protecting your customers data, coming up with a completely unrelated corporate social responsibility plan like this makes sense.

godzillabrennus 9y ago
This. It's amazing how many big companies use Dropbox with how limited their commitment to protecting customer data has been.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  I suspect that corporations have much more leverage in this than consumers...
  - littlestymaar 9y ago
    For US corps maybe, but many foreign companies also use dropbox even though they have little to no leverage in the US.
- idrios 9y ago
  Clarification needed. When you say their commitment has been limited, do you mean they have done things that go contrary to protecting data (like selling user data to ad companies, or handing user data to government agencies when requested) or that they haven't actively taken a stance for protecting customer data (such as duckduckgo's promise not to track you, or Wikipedia's promise to stay donation-based).
laurent123456 9y ago
In which way is Dropbox data not protected? Do you mean they tend to lose files?
- older 9y ago
  Dropbox doesn't encrypt your data. Compare them [1] and SpiderOak [2] for example. [1] https://www.dropbox.com/security https://www.dropbox.com/security [2] https://spideroak.com/no-knowledge/ https://spideroak.com/no-knowledge/

JepZ 9y ago

> The Foundation will instead offer flexible, unrestricted grants that our partners can use to meet their greatest needs. When you read that and have the recent Oxfam scandal in mind, it creates some interesting pictures. Btw. I don't want to criticize the decision for unrestricted grants in any way, as I don't have enough expertise in the field.

potatoyogurt 9y ago
There's always a risk when you give money that it will be used in a way you don't approve of or that is generally unsavory. Restrictions are one way to try to control that, but they're not foolproof. I think ultimately if you're willing to give money to an organization (and your goal is not just to get a building built and named after you), you should feel comfortable enough with its management that you're willing to trust it to make the right choices. If management won't make the right choices, your money will probably be better off elsewhere. There are exceptions for organizations that are large enough to have multiple organizations nested under them with competing or independent goals (such as a university or a large charity with independent projects targeting different issues).
- colejohnson66 9y ago
  > There's always a risk when you give money that it will be used in a way you don't approve of... I’ve seen people on the left get upset when they find out that the ACLU defends the rights of people on the right in addition to those on the left.
  - sincerely 9y ago
    In the wake of Charlottesville I recall some ACLU workers resigning.
protomyth 9y ago
Unrestricted grants are a blessing when you deal with a world that will let you buy a student a computer but not the desk to set it on.

jxub 9y ago

Looks like a PR stunt to jack up the hype before going public.

humanrebar 9y ago
I've always felt strange metaphorically waving the flag of my employer while doing charity work. I don't help people because of my paycheck, so it seems inaccurate, at least, to brand my humanity with the name on my paycheck.

ktpsns 9y ago

A foundation with 20M$ and these ambitious goals is a gift for the society. However, it is also the typical American way of company-society interaction. The actually intended way is called "paxing taxes". Dropbox, like a good part of the US tech companies, has it's European site in Ireland, a country known for its low tax rates [1]. [1] https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator/dropbox-confirms-irish-tax-dodge/news-story/1b9ac0b9df2139eb4d42d00c4bf21969 https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator...

koolba 9y ago
> A foundation with 20M$ and these ambitious goals is a gift for the society. However, it is also the typical American way of company-society interaction. The actually intended way is called "paxing taxes". Not really. It depends on what you think taxes should be paying for. If you think they should cover essential services that can't be taken care of by the private sector (ex: roads, police, national defense) then lower taxes and private sector philanthropic spending is a better choice. It removes the particularly heinous problem of government officials spending the public's money on things the public doesn't actually want them to spend it on. The private sector has no such issues as by definition they're spending their own money.
- rb666 9y ago
  All the things you mentioned can also be handled by the private sector. Not a good idea, however. Also very typical American, not considering healthcare an essential service, lol.
  - muninn_ 9y ago
    Sorry but this is completely ridiculous and disingenuously undermines the OP's very good point. First, even if some Americans don't support universal healthcare, that doesn't mean that all Americans don't support it. Even if they do, there are arguments to be made both for and against universal healthcare. I happen to fall on the pro-universal healthcare side, but it's certainly not without drawbacks. Second, the OP wasn't suggesting that we should have privately funded militaries and private roads, but that one possible government outcome is the government paying for such things while leaving other items (maybe donations to scientific foundations as an example) up to private sector interests. If you're Dropbox, and you strongly believe in a cause and you want to support that cause, it makes far more sense to withhold taxes (so far as it is legal to do so) that you have no control over and set up a foundation to pursue the cause that you're aiming for. Not only can you ensure that money goes toward that cause, but you're nearly guaranteed to do a better job than the government which is, by it's very nature, subject to the whims and opinions of people who may not share your view on the use of your money and less efficient in the handling of your money. I have a big problem with American companies not paying their fair share of taxes, and even more so with the obscene wealth inequality that has come to dominate the last few decades, but your post here is a drive-by at a reasonable discussion point, followed by a trite comment about Americans for no reason other than to stir up trouble.

fiatjaf 9y ago

Wasn't Dropbox "a feature, not a product"?

gpvos 9y ago
That's what Steve Jobs said. He can be wrong.
- mmjaa 9y ago
  Dropbox should've been a feature of the operating system, but it isn't, because OS vendors have convinced themselves there's nothing left to do since the Internet is just going to solve all the hard problems now. Seriously, I rue the day someone decided not to build-in such features as Internet-wide file sharing into my operating system, giving me full control over my content - subjugating me, instead, to the whims of yet another un-trustable third party.
  - fiatjaf 9y ago
    Dropbox is a company that hosts your files. If it was a feature of the operating system, who would host the files?
    - glenneroo 9y ago
      Microsoft, Apple and Google (among others) all offer cloud-based hosting.
    - mmjaa 9y ago
      There are no good reasons I couldn't host my own files, with my own bandwidth, on my perfectly cromulant server/mobile device. The only issue is, it hasn't been considered of any importance to maintain user agency; better we steal the users agency over their data/computers, put it out 'in the cloud', and get them addicted/dependent on third parties, than to make the operating system deliver similar levels of service, at scale, at the local level. What if, instead of getting all hot and bothered about browsers, OS-teams instead focused on making source-/locality-/ownership- of user-generated data, within the context of the local machine, available at scale? Like, gimme IPFS open and operating by default, in my regular distro, and I'll never have to host a site on a cloud server again... Todays computers/bandwidth/connectivity can handle the load.

mful 9y ago

> A big part of our mission has always been helping our users achieve their missions. Do these types of PR lines from companies that make productivity tools actually resonate with folks? At Dropbox’s scale, they probably materially increase economic productivity, which is great. Why push some narrative about helping aid workers achieve their mission? This sort of language seems especially strange to me when announcing something that actually can make significant social impact. The juxtaposition between the Dropbox product and the work of this foundation jumps off the page. Maybe it’s just me as I get older, but it seems so patronizing. Anywho, this seems like a great project — great work DB, PR quibbles aside :)

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
matt4077 9y ago
The corporate language is off-putting, indeed. But what they're (trying to) say actually makes sense: Dropbox has seen some of its greatest success from people using it in ways they have not specifically foreseen. People used it for photo sharing, even though it wasn't advertised as a "photo-sharing tool". That ties in well with their policy of making unrestricted grants, which similarly aims to delegate decision-making downstream.
frabbit 9y ago
> Do these types of PR lines from companies that make productivity tools actually resonate with folks? In the case of Dropbox, for me, it comes across as cynical virtue signalling. If Dropbox were funding the EFF or the FSF or even dropping some funding to CCC or FOSDEM then I could start to overlook their ties with the sort of people¹ that create clients for Warchild. As it is this stuff comes across as pretty horrible, and I keep on thinking about Dropbox as being part of a network of businesses closely tied to the military that create the problems that they now care about. I realize I am not their target audience, but this PR has the effect of making me dislike them more than ever. 1. http://www.drop-dropbox.com/ http://www.drop-dropbox.com/
- shaki-dora 9y ago

montrose 9y ago

It is huge that they give unrestricted grants. I've been involved in the nonprofit world a lot in the last few years, and the most surprising thing I've learned is how depressingly common restricted grants are. Restricted grants are when you give money to a nonprofit to do what you want, rather than what they want. Usually this is some highly visible thing that the donor can then claim credit for. These projects are almost never what the nonprofit would have chosen to do themselves. Often they damage the nonprofit significantly. I was talking to a nonprofit a few months ago that had branches in two different cities quite far apart. I asked them why they'd chosen to expand to another city rather than expand in the city they were in. Wasn't it a distraction? They said it was, but that they'd gotten a restricted grant to open a branch in the new city. The less powerful nonprofits have no choice but to take such money. And they don't dare complain about it, which is why you've never heard about this issue. Exactly the opposite, in fact: they have to issue press releases lauding the generosity of the donors. Which then perpetuates the problem, by making it seem to future donors that restricted grants are how you're supposed to do charity. I don't know how Dropbox figured out that they should do unrestricted grants. It's a remarkably sophisticated insight for beginners.

srean 9y ago
> Restricted grants are when you give money to a nonprofit to do what you want, rather than what they want. Spot on. The picture is often worse than the one you have painted -- Hey there, here's a few million dollars to help your country tackle AIDS. BTW, you can only spend it on drugs manufactured by US pharma. At that stage its creative accounting to route tax money to your base of choice, with PR for free. Works the same for defense related grants.
dayaz36 9y ago
This is exactly what's happening with Khan Academy. Not only they get restricted grants from Google but Eric Schmidt (among others) is on their board directly influencing the direction of the organization
- heyoni 9y ago
  In a bad way?

staticelf 9y ago

> For the past 10 years, we’ve seen the impact our products can have when they free up our time to focus on work that truly matters. Medical researchers share data sets to develop vaccines. Musicians compose scores. Aid workers access and coordinate information from the field. Is it just me that think this is very cringy and reminds me of https://youtu.be/J-GVd_HLlps?t=31s https://youtu.be/J-GVd_HLlps?t=31s I like that they help fund stuff but I just think the statement is kind of hilarious.

throwawayyx96 9y ago
Dropbox following the tried and true path of taking credit for tangentially "enabling" the contributions of others. Kind of reminiscent of Apple's statements about the massive impact of their company on the economy and job creation in other industries. Heck, as long as the bar is this low, Microsoft could write a similar sounding PR statement to put some lipstick on their file system patent trolling - "At Microsoft, we have an unwavering commitment to the fight against poverty. Our storage technology has been crucial to the success of the one laptop per child program."

megous 9y ago

I'm glad they chose to support warchild. It will not stop Russian and Syrian governments from murdering and maiming ~50-100 children daily these days, while trying to replay Grozny scenario in Ghouta, but anything that helps at least those that manage to run away south to Jordan and not freeze to death on their way is great.

forgotmypw 9y ago

No JS = blank page? Tab closed.

braderhart 9y ago

I'll take an open source client and changelogs with each release please.

jimnotgym 9y ago

<bus joke>You wait all day for a Foundation to come along...https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16431800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16431800 </bus joke>