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Wow. I just lost a whole lot of respect for Canonical. “If you read the document we expect nobody to read, you’d know that you sold your soul to us. We didn’t m

Wow. I just lost a whole lot of respect for Canonical. “If you read the document we expect nobody to read, you’d know that you sold your soul to us. We didn’t mean for you to find that out but one of our salespeople got overeager and tried to sell you your soul back. He will be reprimanded. Can we all forget about this real quick?”

rkangel 6y ago
This was my first response as well (it's not the data sharing that's the problem, it's that you noticed). Thinking about it though, a lot of it is a question of surprise and unknowns. I would find this message to be a lot better - "We see that you've taken advantage of the Ubuntu image that Canonical provide in the Azure Marketplace. I am available to you for (etc.)".
- inetknght 6y ago
  > * I would find this message to be a lot better - "We see that you've taken advantage of the Ubuntu image* No. That's not better at all. The mere fact that Canonical has specific information to reach me when I am not a direct customer of Canonical is a complete violation of my privacy. Ubuntu is a free product. Canonical should not be able to find out if I (specifically me or my organization) allocates or runs 1 or 10000 instances of Ubuntu.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    The alternative is that Azure owns complete access to the customer. Which seems... well, an easy skip to App Store-esque rent seeking. So MS sharing "their" customer details with the image provider seems more generous than evil. Provided there's a "Do not share" config option somewhere.
    - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
      The issue is more so *why* Microsoft is sharing this information with Canonical. — what does it obtain from it? Ubuntu is gratis, so Canonical can't have coerced Microsoft into doing so; it is quite probable that one approached the other to make a deal, and that Canonical is paying a certain fee for this information.
      - kube-system 6y ago
        The code is gratis. Although, partnership deals tend to go beyond simply sharing code, and into the realm of dedicating time and resources to working with each other.
        wizzwizz4 6y ago
        The code is more than just gratis; it's libre. This is Ubuntu, based on Debian GNU/Linux. (Yeah, okay, some of the code is merely gratis, but most of it is libre.) I don't expect an OS based on an OS based on an OS based on a half-finished OS based on free software principles to have shady data-dealing attached, yet hidden from the people whose data is being dealt.
        moron4hire 6y ago
        You might not have expected it, but privacy protection is not any sort of obligation encoded in any extant concept of Free Software.
        gowld 6y ago
        It has nothing to do with Free Software. I'd expect the same treatment if I were paying Microsoft to run Oracle for me.
        moron4hire 6y ago
        So you didn't read the ToS, I take it? I did. I do whenever it's something important to the company's infrastructure. Canonical is the one at fault here for not adhering to Microsoft's guidelines. But Microsoft put the warning on the package. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous to think that you could do anything in a cloud environment system and not have your actions tracked. Hell, with automated load balancing and load-based billing, that's literally what you're signing up for.
        wizzwizz4 6y ago
        Free software is about user empowerment, and the ability for users to be hackers if they want to (or employ people to make changes on their behalf). “Sike, we've been stalking you and you can't do anything about it” is antithetical to this ideal. Privacy protection is not an obligation, but transparency and openness is. Yes, you're not contractually required to not make a separate computer system that's proprietary and closed and disempowering, but that's so pedantic as to be malicious.
    - falcolas 6y ago
      If I'm doing business with Azure, I would absolutely expect them to keep my data and behavior private. It's part of the reason why I would be paying them (instead of expecting something for free) in the first place.
    - IgorPartola 6y ago
      So if I write a piece of software that eventually makes it to Debian and Ubuntu, am I entitled to your name, address, phone number, email, and a data feed showing every time you start or stop your Ubuntu instances on Azure? After all, I am a third party software provider at that point. And look, Azure doesn’t even have to tell you they are sending me all that stuff. It’s in the TOS you didn’t read!
      - ethbr0 6y ago
        If I choose to run an image maintained by IgorPartola, sure! If I download packages and Ubuntu, and assemble my own image, or use one assembled by another org, probably not. I think the disconnect is that for me, image packaging and updating is work, and that work has an author, and the author is deserving of certain rights others are not. If Azure is auto-pulling Ubuntu images, building containers, and publishing themselves, then that's a different story.
  - ojnabieoot 6y ago
    > Ubuntu is a free product. Canonical should not be able to find out if I (specifically me or my organization) allocates or runs 1 or 10000 instances of Ubuntu I agree with the message behind this and obviously Canonical and Microsoft are both being extremely gross. But Ubuntu as a binary image (or source code) is a very different product than a VM with Ubuntu pre-installed and pre-configured, which is what you paid for (and is why you got ensnared by their horrible anti-user license).
    - inetknght 6y ago
      > But Ubuntu as a binary image (or source code) is a very different product than a VM with Ubuntu pre-installed. How? Why? If it's different in any meaningful way from just clicking "next" on the installer then it's no longer Ubuntu, and certainly not Canonical Ubuntu, that's pre-installed. It's become, at best, Microsoft-Ubuntu-Because-Microsoft-Added-Telemetry-For-Azure. Or it's Canoncical-Ubuntu-Configured-By-Microsoft-With-Azure-CLI-Preinstalled. It's not "Ubuntu" any more.
      - hannasanarion 6y ago
        You don't get to decide what is and isn't "Ubuntu", Canonical does. Did you likewise declare that Ubuntu isn't Ubuntu anymore when Canonical dropped Unity? or when they added snap? Or when they added or later removed the Amazon search plugin? When I'm paying for an official Azure version of Ubuntu on Azure, I darn well expect there will be a closer support relationship than the free desktop version.
        saghm 6y ago
        > When I'm paying for an official Azure version of Ubuntu on Azure, I darn well expect there will be a closer support relationship than the free desktop version. Okay, but maybe other people don't want that if it entails their information being shared with a company they haven't initiated a business relationship with?
        6y ago
  - moron4hire 6y ago
    It's not "free as in lying around on the ground", it's free as in "freedom". You have to agree to Canonical's "Terms of Service" to use Ubuntu, so you are a licensed customer of Canonical's. In this case, the license is the GPL, none of which has anything to say about privacy. Maybe this is a failure of the Free Software Foundation's to not include privacy protection in the GPL. Though even if they were to create a GPLv4, the Linux Kernel is still only licensed under v2, so distro implementors have no obligation to use a more restrictive license. AKA, "the cat is already out of the bag". In the OP's case, they additionally are are customer of Microsoft's, who explicitly stated they share this kind of information with their vendors.
    - j16sdiz 6y ago
      I am not sure we should add privacy protection to software license. Debian Free software guideline does not allow discriminate against using debian for evil.
      - moron4hire 6y ago
        Oh, I definitely agree, I'm just trying to point out that a lot of people here are making assumptions about what "Free Software" means that literally nobody in the FOSS or Open Source movements have ever said were goals.
        goodpoint 6y ago
        > nobody in the FOSS or Open Source movements have ever said were goals Citation needed. RMS, the FSF and many other orgs made public statements around privacy many times.
        moron4hire 6y ago
        I think you're the one who needs to provide a citation, because I've read a lot of the literature on the FSF's website and not once does privacy come up. Now, I can't exhaustively prove a negative, but I think I can easily demonstrate that the FSF has never meaningfully expressed an opinion on privacy. Go to https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html, open every single page it links to in the body of the text, and search for the word "privacy". It does not show up in the body text of any of those documents. It shows up once in a footnote that mentions a change that Samsung made had that "caused privacy concerns". The closest they get to even mentioning the concept of privacy is when they talk about the right to modify software and use those modifications "privately", which clearly does not mean anything about user privacy. If privacy were so big of a concern for the FSF, you'd think they'd talk about it in their official documentation on their philosophy, or put something about it in the ONE tool they have to have power over anyone: the GPL.
  - bialpio 6y ago
    It is a violation of your privacy that you may have already agreed to - presumably MS mentions this in their ToS/privacy policy that this information will be shared. They just conveniently forget to remind you that when you deploy a VM... Another interesting question: aren't you a direct customer of Canonical here? When you buy stuff off of any marketplace or though a reseller, it seems to me you are a customer for multiple companies. Examples: buying an iPhone from AT&T, buying a laptop from Amazon, buying a Subaru through a dealer.
    - saghm 6y ago
      I think there's a difference here; you can get Ubuntu got free outside of Azure without being a customer of Canonical, but you can't get an iPhone from Apple for free from them just by going through a different channel
      - bialpio 6y ago
        I think I'm missing something... Ubuntu is developed by Canonical, right? Just because you do not pay for it when you get it outside of Azure does not mean you are not their customer?
        sudosysgen 6y ago
        Doesn't customer imply a paying relationship? If I put some code online and let people use my software I'd say that makes them at most my users, not consumers. When you get it a certain way through Azure you both enter a contractual agreement with each other, and that does make you a customer.
        bialpio 6y ago
        I think requiring payment is a bit too strict requirement to define a customer. Your users still agree to your license, so there is a relationship established, you may just not get any benefit from it (monetary or otherwise). Even in your license you likely have to be explicit that "software is provided as-is" and you aren't responsible for it misbehaving - otherwise your customers/users could try to sue you. Just because you don't pay for Ubuntu doesn't mean Canonical does not get anything out of you deploying it. Do they gather any kind of data about users' behavior?
badjeans 6y ago
Why Canonical? Isn't this a Microsoft feature?
- detaro 6y ago
  How is a Canonical rep contacting him purely a "Microsoft feature"?
  - inetknght 6y ago
    It means that Microsoft is providing information that they shouldn't.
    - detaro 6y ago
      And Canonical decided to take that data, search him on Linkedin and contact him. Seems reasonable to see that as a reason to loose respect for Canonical over.
      - inetknght 6y ago
        Don't get me wrong, what Canonical has done here also isn't good. But what they've done shouldn't have been possible because Microsoft shouldn't have given Canonical the information in the first place.
        bigbizisverywyz 6y ago
        The question I have is what's in it for Microsoft, why did they even bother to do this in the first place? I can't believe there would be that big of a cash incentive.
        foolmeonce 6y ago
        If this were Windows, I would expect Microsoft to pass it to an internal department that sells higher service contracts and then off to 3rd parties that provide the same for up to a week after you find the "don't share my data" checkbox. That (enterprise support) is a very important side business. Whether they got cash from other OSes or just set it up the same to fight an eventual Anti-Trust Case is anyone's guess.
znpy 6y ago
> one of our salespeople got overeager and tried to sell you your soul back. He will be reprimanded. I wonder what have the consequences been for that guy.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Probably a promotion for failing upwards. At least, that's how precedence makes me feel about it.
- bregma 6y ago
  Probably a "graduate trainee" who got a stern talking-to.
SilasX 6y ago
>one of our salespeople got overeager and tried to sell you your soul back. He will be reprimanded. I don't think the (non-)apology even gave that much, just that the training/policies will be "reviewed", which is even weaker: >>In light of this incident, Canonical will be reviewing its sales training and policies.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  I speak enough corporate to know that this guy gets to be chewed out. They singled him out in their response and said he was new. If they stood behind this policy they would have basically diffused the responsibility without mentioning him by specifically. I could be wrong of course, but he cost a bunch of people a bunch of time and effort and unpleasantness so he'll get yelled at.
  - rchaud 6y ago
    They singled him out because the original tweet showed the salesperson's full name and picture. He might lose his job because he unintentionally showed everyone how the sausage of monetizing open source is made.
yellowapple 6y ago
Canonical's been scummy for about a decade now. This is the same company that shoved Amazon results into local desktop searches, then responded to criticisms of that with "Don't trust us? We have root.". Pretty ironic considering the meaning of the word "ubuntu".
aruggirello 6y ago
I'm all for Occam's Razor and don't usually buy corporate bullshit, but this comes to my mind: - Azure is the second largest cloud provider worldwide - Ubuntu is probably the most common Linux distro installed in the cloud - We never heard about another episode like this before Now if Canonical was allowing / encouraging this kind of behavior from their sales rep, I think we should have seen it happen in the wild before (like, a thousand times?) already; since it only happened once, I'm inclined to believe them. Also see [1] Now let me think: I'm not OK with Canonical accessing my contact information because I spin up a VM, but I'm also not OK with Microsoft sharing my contact information with Canonical. What's wrong with "let me call them if and when I need?" But I'm European so maybe a little too privacy focused. [1] BTW: let's say 99% Ubuntu VMs are spun to host some boring Wordpress site, nuvelle cuisine blog or leather shoe shop. What's the chance of an Ubuntu sales representative to ever make a sale this way? I guess it must be pretty slim, so he'd have to contact hundreds of potential customers to turn a few sales - something that would quickly get reported if it was a corporate business habit. This reinforces my first impression.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  I feel like you're missing the point. I wholeheartedly believe Canonical does not encourage this kind of behavior from their sales rep, but only because it makes it obvious that they're getting data from MS they really have no right to access, when they really intend for it to just stay hidden behind some voluminous terms of service. You know what they say, the definition of "gaffe" is when someone tells the truth.
- bialpio 6y ago
  We haven't heard about it before because other sales reps didn't admit to knowing that a customer has deployed something, and reached out to the customers under the guise of standard-looking sales pitch that got dismissed as regular kind of spam. That would be my take on it.
hardolaf 6y ago
You had respect for Canonical after they put ads in the OS?

rkangel 6y ago

This was my first response as well (it's not the data sharing that's the problem, it's that you noticed). Thinking about it though, a lot of it is a question of surprise and unknowns. I would find this message to be a lot better - "We see that you've taken advantage of the Ubuntu image that Canonical provide in the Azure Marketplace. I am available to you for (etc.)".

inetknght 6y ago
> * I would find this message to be a lot better - "We see that you've taken advantage of the Ubuntu image* No. That's not better at all. The mere fact that Canonical has specific information to reach me when I am not a direct customer of Canonical is a complete violation of my privacy. Ubuntu is a free product. Canonical should not be able to find out if I (specifically me or my organization) allocates or runs 1 or 10000 instances of Ubuntu.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  The alternative is that Azure owns complete access to the customer. Which seems... well, an easy skip to App Store-esque rent seeking. So MS sharing "their" customer details with the image provider seems more generous than evil. Provided there's a "Do not share" config option somewhere.
  - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
    The issue is more so *why* Microsoft is sharing this information with Canonical. — what does it obtain from it? Ubuntu is gratis, so Canonical can't have coerced Microsoft into doing so; it is quite probable that one approached the other to make a deal, and that Canonical is paying a certain fee for this information.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      The code is gratis. Although, partnership deals tend to go beyond simply sharing code, and into the realm of dedicating time and resources to working with each other.
      - wizzwizz4 6y ago
        The code is more than just gratis; it's libre. This is Ubuntu, based on Debian GNU/Linux. (Yeah, okay, some of the code is merely gratis, but most of it is libre.) I don't expect an OS based on an OS based on an OS based on a half-finished OS based on free software principles to have shady data-dealing attached, yet hidden from the people whose data is being dealt.
        moron4hire 6y ago
        You might not have expected it, but privacy protection is not any sort of obligation encoded in any extant concept of Free Software.
        gowld 6y ago
        It has nothing to do with Free Software. I'd expect the same treatment if I were paying Microsoft to run Oracle for me.
        moron4hire 6y ago
        So you didn't read the ToS, I take it? I did. I do whenever it's something important to the company's infrastructure. Canonical is the one at fault here for not adhering to Microsoft's guidelines. But Microsoft put the warning on the package. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous to think that you could do anything in a cloud environment system and not have your actions tracked. Hell, with automated load balancing and load-based billing, that's literally what you're signing up for.
        wizzwizz4 6y ago
        Free software is about user empowerment, and the ability for users to be hackers if they want to (or employ people to make changes on their behalf). “Sike, we've been stalking you and you can't do anything about it” is antithetical to this ideal. Privacy protection is not an obligation, but transparency and openness is. Yes, you're not contractually required to not make a separate computer system that's proprietary and closed and disempowering, but that's so pedantic as to be malicious.
  - falcolas 6y ago
    If I'm doing business with Azure, I would absolutely expect them to keep my data and behavior private. It's part of the reason why I would be paying them (instead of expecting something for free) in the first place.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    So if I write a piece of software that eventually makes it to Debian and Ubuntu, am I entitled to your name, address, phone number, email, and a data feed showing every time you start or stop your Ubuntu instances on Azure? After all, I am a third party software provider at that point. And look, Azure doesn’t even have to tell you they are sending me all that stuff. It’s in the TOS you didn’t read!
    - ethbr0 6y ago
      If I choose to run an image maintained by IgorPartola, sure! If I download packages and Ubuntu, and assemble my own image, or use one assembled by another org, probably not. I think the disconnect is that for me, image packaging and updating is work, and that work has an author, and the author is deserving of certain rights others are not. If Azure is auto-pulling Ubuntu images, building containers, and publishing themselves, then that's a different story.
- ojnabieoot 6y ago
  > Ubuntu is a free product. Canonical should not be able to find out if I (specifically me or my organization) allocates or runs 1 or 10000 instances of Ubuntu I agree with the message behind this and obviously Canonical and Microsoft are both being extremely gross. But Ubuntu as a binary image (or source code) is a very different product than a VM with Ubuntu pre-installed and pre-configured, which is what you paid for (and is why you got ensnared by their horrible anti-user license).
  - inetknght 6y ago
    > But Ubuntu as a binary image (or source code) is a very different product than a VM with Ubuntu pre-installed. How? Why? If it's different in any meaningful way from just clicking "next" on the installer then it's no longer Ubuntu, and certainly not Canonical Ubuntu, that's pre-installed. It's become, at best, Microsoft-Ubuntu-Because-Microsoft-Added-Telemetry-For-Azure. Or it's Canoncical-Ubuntu-Configured-By-Microsoft-With-Azure-CLI-Preinstalled. It's not "Ubuntu" any more.
    - hannasanarion 6y ago
      You don't get to decide what is and isn't "Ubuntu", Canonical does. Did you likewise declare that Ubuntu isn't Ubuntu anymore when Canonical dropped Unity? or when they added snap? Or when they added or later removed the Amazon search plugin? When I'm paying for an official Azure version of Ubuntu on Azure, I darn well expect there will be a closer support relationship than the free desktop version.
      - saghm 6y ago
        > When I'm paying for an official Azure version of Ubuntu on Azure, I darn well expect there will be a closer support relationship than the free desktop version. Okay, but maybe other people don't want that if it entails their information being shared with a company they haven't initiated a business relationship with?
        6y ago
- moron4hire 6y ago
  It's not "free as in lying around on the ground", it's free as in "freedom". You have to agree to Canonical's "Terms of Service" to use Ubuntu, so you are a licensed customer of Canonical's. In this case, the license is the GPL, none of which has anything to say about privacy. Maybe this is a failure of the Free Software Foundation's to not include privacy protection in the GPL. Though even if they were to create a GPLv4, the Linux Kernel is still only licensed under v2, so distro implementors have no obligation to use a more restrictive license. AKA, "the cat is already out of the bag". In the OP's case, they additionally are are customer of Microsoft's, who explicitly stated they share this kind of information with their vendors.
  - j16sdiz 6y ago
    I am not sure we should add privacy protection to software license. Debian Free software guideline does not allow discriminate against using debian for evil.
    - moron4hire 6y ago
      Oh, I definitely agree, I'm just trying to point out that a lot of people here are making assumptions about what "Free Software" means that literally nobody in the FOSS or Open Source movements have ever said were goals.
      - goodpoint 6y ago
        > nobody in the FOSS or Open Source movements have ever said were goals Citation needed. RMS, the FSF and many other orgs made public statements around privacy many times.
        moron4hire 6y ago
        I think you're the one who needs to provide a citation, because I've read a lot of the literature on the FSF's website and not once does privacy come up. Now, I can't exhaustively prove a negative, but I think I can easily demonstrate that the FSF has never meaningfully expressed an opinion on privacy. Go to https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html, open every single page it links to in the body of the text, and search for the word "privacy". It does not show up in the body text of any of those documents. It shows up once in a footnote that mentions a change that Samsung made had that "caused privacy concerns". The closest they get to even mentioning the concept of privacy is when they talk about the right to modify software and use those modifications "privately", which clearly does not mean anything about user privacy. If privacy were so big of a concern for the FSF, you'd think they'd talk about it in their official documentation on their philosophy, or put something about it in the ONE tool they have to have power over anyone: the GPL.
- bialpio 6y ago
  It is a violation of your privacy that you may have already agreed to - presumably MS mentions this in their ToS/privacy policy that this information will be shared. They just conveniently forget to remind you that when you deploy a VM... Another interesting question: aren't you a direct customer of Canonical here? When you buy stuff off of any marketplace or though a reseller, it seems to me you are a customer for multiple companies. Examples: buying an iPhone from AT&T, buying a laptop from Amazon, buying a Subaru through a dealer.
  - saghm 6y ago
    I think there's a difference here; you can get Ubuntu got free outside of Azure without being a customer of Canonical, but you can't get an iPhone from Apple for free from them just by going through a different channel
    - bialpio 6y ago
      I think I'm missing something... Ubuntu is developed by Canonical, right? Just because you do not pay for it when you get it outside of Azure does not mean you are not their customer?
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        Doesn't customer imply a paying relationship? If I put some code online and let people use my software I'd say that makes them at most my users, not consumers. When you get it a certain way through Azure you both enter a contractual agreement with each other, and that does make you a customer.
        bialpio 6y ago
        I think requiring payment is a bit too strict requirement to define a customer. Your users still agree to your license, so there is a relationship established, you may just not get any benefit from it (monetary or otherwise). Even in your license you likely have to be explicit that "software is provided as-is" and you aren't responsible for it misbehaving - otherwise your customers/users could try to sue you. Just because you don't pay for Ubuntu doesn't mean Canonical does not get anything out of you deploying it. Do they gather any kind of data about users' behavior?

badjeans 6y ago

Why Canonical? Isn't this a Microsoft feature?

detaro 6y ago
How is a Canonical rep contacting him purely a "Microsoft feature"?
- inetknght 6y ago
  It means that Microsoft is providing information that they shouldn't.
  - detaro 6y ago
    And Canonical decided to take that data, search him on Linkedin and contact him. Seems reasonable to see that as a reason to loose respect for Canonical over.
    - inetknght 6y ago
      Don't get me wrong, what Canonical has done here also isn't good. But what they've done shouldn't have been possible because Microsoft shouldn't have given Canonical the information in the first place.
      - bigbizisverywyz 6y ago
        The question I have is what's in it for Microsoft, why did they even bother to do this in the first place? I can't believe there would be that big of a cash incentive.
        foolmeonce 6y ago
        If this were Windows, I would expect Microsoft to pass it to an internal department that sells higher service contracts and then off to 3rd parties that provide the same for up to a week after you find the "don't share my data" checkbox. That (enterprise support) is a very important side business. Whether they got cash from other OSes or just set it up the same to fight an eventual Anti-Trust Case is anyone's guess.

znpy 6y ago

> one of our salespeople got overeager and tried to sell you your soul back. He will be reprimanded. I wonder what have the consequences been for that guy.

dylan604 6y ago
Probably a promotion for failing upwards. At least, that's how precedence makes me feel about it.
bregma 6y ago
Probably a "graduate trainee" who got a stern talking-to.

SilasX 6y ago

>one of our salespeople got overeager and tried to sell you your soul back. He will be reprimanded. I don't think the (non-)apology even gave that much, just that the training/policies will be "reviewed", which is even weaker: >>In light of this incident, Canonical will be reviewing its sales training and policies.

IgorPartola 6y ago
I speak enough corporate to know that this guy gets to be chewed out. They singled him out in their response and said he was new. If they stood behind this policy they would have basically diffused the responsibility without mentioning him by specifically. I could be wrong of course, but he cost a bunch of people a bunch of time and effort and unpleasantness so he'll get yelled at.
- rchaud 6y ago
  They singled him out because the original tweet showed the salesperson's full name and picture. He might lose his job because he unintentionally showed everyone how the sausage of monetizing open source is made.

yellowapple 6y ago

Canonical's been scummy for about a decade now. This is the same company that shoved Amazon results into local desktop searches, then responded to criticisms of that with "Don't trust us? We have root.". Pretty ironic considering the meaning of the word "ubuntu".

aruggirello 6y ago

I'm all for Occam's Razor and don't usually buy corporate bullshit, but this comes to my mind: - Azure is the second largest cloud provider worldwide - Ubuntu is probably the most common Linux distro installed in the cloud - We never heard about another episode like this before Now if Canonical was allowing / encouraging this kind of behavior from their sales rep, I think we should have seen it happen in the wild before (like, a thousand times?) already; since it only happened once, I'm inclined to believe them. Also see [1] Now let me think: I'm not OK with Canonical accessing my contact information because I spin up a VM, but I'm also not OK with Microsoft sharing my contact information with Canonical. What's wrong with "let me call them if and when I need?" But I'm European so maybe a little too privacy focused. [1] BTW: let's say 99% Ubuntu VMs are spun to host some boring Wordpress site, nuvelle cuisine blog or leather shoe shop. What's the chance of an Ubuntu sales representative to ever make a sale this way? I guess it must be pretty slim, so he'd have to contact hundreds of potential customers to turn a few sales - something that would quickly get reported if it was a corporate business habit. This reinforces my first impression.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
I feel like you're missing the point. I wholeheartedly believe Canonical does not encourage this kind of behavior from their sales rep, but only because it makes it obvious that they're getting data from MS they really have no right to access, when they really intend for it to just stay hidden behind some voluminous terms of service. You know what they say, the definition of "gaffe" is when someone tells the truth.
bialpio 6y ago
We haven't heard about it before because other sales reps didn't admit to knowing that a customer has deployed something, and reached out to the customers under the guise of standard-looking sales pitch that got dismissed as regular kind of spam. That would be my take on it.

hardolaf 6y ago

You had respect for Canonical after they put ads in the OS?