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Your comment does appear disingenuous, though I'm sure that's not deliberate. Neither false DMCA notifications nor github takedown requests are legitimate respo

by anatoly 15y ago

Your comment does appear disingenuous, though I'm sure that's not deliberate. Neither false DMCA notifications nor github takedown requests are legitimate responses to "simple nerd-rage" when it's about MIT-licensed code. I'm sure you understand this and you say as much elsewhere in your comment; but your sentence appears to trivialize these actions by including them after a soothing "the only thing... purported to have done... to politely ask...", and dismissing their significance with "simple nerd-rage". Sure, this isn't a big deal in the larger scheme of things; but it isn't as trifling a deal as your comment's rhetorics make it out to be. Dropbox's actions are hurting its geek credibility, and rightfully so; I take your point about them possibly wishing to appear tough on rapidshare-ization of their service, but they don't have to do this employing tactics that are widely considered to be low. A proper amount of posturing and some real tech work behind the scenes to make this sort of access harder, if not impossible, would achieve more and not hurt their image. I do have another, more substantive disagreement with your original comment, not about style. I don't think it's as clear as you present that the code in question was obviously not going to be suppressed by Dropbox, and they obviously understood that, etc. Yes, the author of the blogpost is possibly biased towards seeing himself as the hero; but I see nothing to contradict his claim that if it weren't for this one stubborn developer, the code would've disappeared from public access. The amount of goodwill towards Dropbox in the community (notably so in the case of the original author) and their swift attempt at censoring the code might have helped this succeeded.

phaylon 15y ago
> Your comment does appear disingenuous, although I'm sure that's not deliberate. Neither false DMCA notifications nor github takedown requests are legitimate responses to "simple nerd-rage" when it's about MIT-licensed code. I don't think anything like that has really happened. There was no DMCA takedown notice, only the (false) message that Dropbox had received a notification from itself, issued when they blocked public downloading of the file. Probably because that's the only way to block hashes they have right now. And as far as I can tell the github repo was removed by the original author, after they asked him. Edit: Fixed bad quoting.
- anatoly 15y ago
  I don't know what tptacek based his words on github takedown requests on; I'm basing mine specifically on the comment by 'R' to the blog post. You make a point elsewhere that the post's author's repository is live on github, but that's not the original one, which was removed by its author. The way I understood the comment by 'R' was that they forked the original repo, and the fork was silently deleted, perhaps due to a request by Dropbox (DMCA or otherwise) that followed up to the original author's voluntary deletion. To be sure, it could be a misunderstanding, a technical glitch, or an attempt at trolling. The Dropbox folks aren't getting my benefit of the doubt on this, though. Their actions, even the ones that aren't disputed, have been unbecoming. Banning the code distribution on Dropbox was a particularly ham-fisted move. It does nothing to curb its spread, because Dropbox is not a web-forum with easy discovery. If I put this file on my public Dropbox folder, the only way others will know to look there is when I advertise this elsewhere, not on Dropbox; but if I'm motivated enough to do that, surely it's no trouble for me to just host it elsewhere. So the ban only hurts their image more. What if I write a text file with the description of their client-server protocol and put that on Dropbox, are they going to ban that file, too? When you willingly put yourself on a slippery slope, be ready to find yourself sliding.
  - phaylon 15y ago
    > To be sure, it could be a misunderstanding, a technical glitch, or an attempt at trolling. The Dropbox folks aren't getting my benefit of the doubt on this, though. They have mine. Now where do we stand?

by anatoly 15y ago

phaylon 15y ago

> Your comment does appear disingenuous, although I'm sure that's not deliberate. Neither false DMCA notifications nor github takedown requests are legitimate responses to "simple nerd-rage" when it's about MIT-licensed code. I don't think anything like that has really happened. There was no DMCA takedown notice, only the (false) message that Dropbox had received a notification from itself, issued when they blocked public downloading of the file. Probably because that's the only way to block hashes they have right now. And as far as I can tell the github repo was removed by the original author, after they asked him. Edit: Fixed bad quoting.

anatoly 15y ago
I don't know what tptacek based his words on github takedown requests on; I'm basing mine specifically on the comment by 'R' to the blog post. You make a point elsewhere that the post's author's repository is live on github, but that's not the original one, which was removed by its author. The way I understood the comment by 'R' was that they forked the original repo, and the fork was silently deleted, perhaps due to a request by Dropbox (DMCA or otherwise) that followed up to the original author's voluntary deletion. To be sure, it could be a misunderstanding, a technical glitch, or an attempt at trolling. The Dropbox folks aren't getting my benefit of the doubt on this, though. Their actions, even the ones that aren't disputed, have been unbecoming. Banning the code distribution on Dropbox was a particularly ham-fisted move. It does nothing to curb its spread, because Dropbox is not a web-forum with easy discovery. If I put this file on my public Dropbox folder, the only way others will know to look there is when I advertise this elsewhere, not on Dropbox; but if I'm motivated enough to do that, surely it's no trouble for me to just host it elsewhere. So the ban only hurts their image more. What if I write a text file with the description of their client-server protocol and put that on Dropbox, are they going to ban that file, too? When you willingly put yourself on a slippery slope, be ready to find yourself sliding.
- phaylon 15y ago
  > To be sure, it could be a misunderstanding, a technical glitch, or an attempt at trolling. The Dropbox folks aren't getting my benefit of the doubt on this, though. They have mine. Now where do we stand?