4 ms·

Since the announcement, I’ve been trying to figure out what the most evil uses of “telemetry” that could be incorporated into Github in order to invade user’s p

Since the announcement, I’ve been trying to figure out what the most evil uses of “telemetry” that could be incorporated into Github in order to invade user’s privacy are. I’ve had a few (small) ideas but I’m confident that Microsoft already has people much more evil^W^Wsmarter than me working on this very problem (if it wasn’t already figured out beforehand).

freeone3000 8y ago
You're already uploading the big one. If you're going to trust Microsoft with your actual data, who cares about the metadata?
- herbst 8y ago
  What about all the people who don't use any Microsoft products (yet)? I don't really get the deal with github and privacy right now. However it is obvious that this could upset many OS devs who avoided MS
- jlgaddis 8y ago
  No, you're just uploading the source code (although, in many cases nowadays, that's the important stuff). The "actual data" doesn't get uploaded to Github but Microsoft has been working on getting their hands on that too -- see Azure, Windows 10 telemetry, etc. (I used to actually like Microsoft Windows -- having ran every consumer version from 3.0 up to 7 and every business version from WFWG 3.11 up to 2008 -- and even earned several Microsoft certifications. I even taught courses on Microsoft server operating systems at a .edu for a few years. But... I've probably only spent 5 minutes on a Windows 8.x machine (and it wasn't mine) and have never used Windows 10 (or 2012 or 2016). Unless something major happens, I will never again run any Microsoft operating system on anything I own. For the last several years, I have simply been unable to trust them as a company.)
ocdtrekkie 8y ago
The vast majority of GitHub content is already public. Massive datasets have been generated, and hosted on Google BigQuery, regarding activity on GitHub[0]. I think we're trying a little too hard to find a way to invent malice here. Most of the client software people use to interface with GitHub is also open source and impossible for Microsoft to inject telemetry into: It's called "git". Also, I would note that the teams that work on Windows and Office, and the teams that work on .NET and Microsoft's other big open source initiatives, might as well belong to two different companies from the differences in how they appear to approach things. Your upset that one product of Microsoft's chose to implement something that everyone else in the industry was doing years earlier does not really justify the nonsense FUD. [0] https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/public-data/github https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/public-data/github
- blub 8y ago
  No need to try hard to find malice. Corporations are amoral and they will do what it takes to make money. For MS that means now cloud services, Office & Windows + some other smaller income stuff. In each of these areas they are aggressively pursuing their interests: the ODF scandal and Munich Linux project come to mind. The rest they can open-source freely and without any negative repercussions, it just makes business sense for the goodwill they will receive. Please note that there are also many private repos and there's also github desktop.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    I would definitely agree that corporations are amoral and will do what it takes to make money, I've made the same argument myself. But GitHub's primary value is lost if everyone leaves it: They would lose most of the value of their $7.5 billion investment if they did what many people are irrationally speculating. I use GitHub Desktop for some things myself, but it's only slightly more capable than GitHub's web interface: Serviceable for basic operations, but probably not the Git client professional developers are going to rely on.
    - blub 8y ago
      I believe they paid in MS shares, so they could in fact shut down Github tomorrow and move on like nothing happened :)
blub 8y ago
They also have LinkedIn. Microsoft realised relatively recently, like Google did a long time ago, that they can give away the sources to the non business-essential stuff and make money through services and exploiting user data. .Net core, a text editor, those are the trinkets that keep the naive developers happy and content that they support a company that is open-source "friendly". That's why open-source is no longer enough today. The big corps are working around it and locking in customers with their SaaS products (which surprise surprise are closed).
- sixdimensional 8y ago
  Eyeballing Oracle here who are especially moving to cloud only versions of many products, such as their ERP platform. Part of my day job, and do I trust them not to lock our data away in their SaaS and then charge us for AaaS (analytics as a service)? Not as far as I can throw them.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  That's why FSF tried to move from GPL to AGPL. But companies are obviously not interested until they have a next gen business model and SaaS/PaaS is commoditized.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    Your hear many people here on HN actively discouraging the use of the AGPL because it prevents software from being used by companies. Goes to show how well the PR departments work.
    - robocat 8y ago
      Or maybe people have their own reasons to avoid AGPL - no need to assume they are victims of PR. For example I avoid the GPL for our business because I use JavaScript, and it seems to me all of our JavaScript code would need to be open sourced if we used any GPL based JavaScript code (because JavaScript is source code and it isn't linked).
    - rmc 8y ago

freeone3000 8y ago

You're already uploading the big one. If you're going to trust Microsoft with your actual data, who cares about the metadata?

herbst 8y ago
What about all the people who don't use any Microsoft products (yet)? I don't really get the deal with github and privacy right now. However it is obvious that this could upset many OS devs who avoided MS
jlgaddis 8y ago
No, you're just uploading the source code (although, in many cases nowadays, that's the important stuff). The "actual data" doesn't get uploaded to Github but Microsoft has been working on getting their hands on that too -- see Azure, Windows 10 telemetry, etc. (I used to actually like Microsoft Windows -- having ran every consumer version from 3.0 up to 7 and every business version from WFWG 3.11 up to 2008 -- and even earned several Microsoft certifications. I even taught courses on Microsoft server operating systems at a .edu for a few years. But... I've probably only spent 5 minutes on a Windows 8.x machine (and it wasn't mine) and have never used Windows 10 (or 2012 or 2016). Unless something major happens, I will never again run any Microsoft operating system on anything I own. For the last several years, I have simply been unable to trust them as a company.)

ocdtrekkie 8y ago

The vast majority of GitHub content is already public. Massive datasets have been generated, and hosted on Google BigQuery, regarding activity on GitHub[0]. I think we're trying a little too hard to find a way to invent malice here. Most of the client software people use to interface with GitHub is also open source and impossible for Microsoft to inject telemetry into: It's called "git". Also, I would note that the teams that work on Windows and Office, and the teams that work on .NET and Microsoft's other big open source initiatives, might as well belong to two different companies from the differences in how they appear to approach things. Your upset that one product of Microsoft's chose to implement something that everyone else in the industry was doing years earlier does not really justify the nonsense FUD. [0] https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/public-data/github https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/public-data/github

blub 8y ago
No need to try hard to find malice. Corporations are amoral and they will do what it takes to make money. For MS that means now cloud services, Office & Windows + some other smaller income stuff. In each of these areas they are aggressively pursuing their interests: the ODF scandal and Munich Linux project come to mind. The rest they can open-source freely and without any negative repercussions, it just makes business sense for the goodwill they will receive. Please note that there are also many private repos and there's also github desktop.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  I would definitely agree that corporations are amoral and will do what it takes to make money, I've made the same argument myself. But GitHub's primary value is lost if everyone leaves it: They would lose most of the value of their $7.5 billion investment if they did what many people are irrationally speculating. I use GitHub Desktop for some things myself, but it's only slightly more capable than GitHub's web interface: Serviceable for basic operations, but probably not the Git client professional developers are going to rely on.
  - blub 8y ago
    I believe they paid in MS shares, so they could in fact shut down Github tomorrow and move on like nothing happened :)

blub 8y ago

They also have LinkedIn. Microsoft realised relatively recently, like Google did a long time ago, that they can give away the sources to the non business-essential stuff and make money through services and exploiting user data. .Net core, a text editor, those are the trinkets that keep the naive developers happy and content that they support a company that is open-source "friendly". That's why open-source is no longer enough today. The big corps are working around it and locking in customers with their SaaS products (which surprise surprise are closed).

sixdimensional 8y ago
Eyeballing Oracle here who are especially moving to cloud only versions of many products, such as their ERP platform. Part of my day job, and do I trust them not to lock our data away in their SaaS and then charge us for AaaS (analytics as a service)? Not as far as I can throw them.
fjsolwmv 8y ago
That's why FSF tried to move from GPL to AGPL. But companies are obviously not interested until they have a next gen business model and SaaS/PaaS is commoditized.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Your hear many people here on HN actively discouraging the use of the AGPL because it prevents software from being used by companies. Goes to show how well the PR departments work.
  - robocat 8y ago
    Or maybe people have their own reasons to avoid AGPL - no need to assume they are victims of PR. For example I avoid the GPL for our business because I use JavaScript, and it seems to me all of our JavaScript code would need to be open sourced if we used any GPL based JavaScript code (because JavaScript is source code and it isn't linked).
  - rmc 8y ago