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Every legitimate company will comply with court orders. What's the story here?

by ralph84 5y ago

speedgoose 5y ago
They don't have to collect data. It's an offline audio editor.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  They do if the law forces them to. Audacity are just writing the way things are.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    In which country does the law force offline applications to collect user's information?
  - eyelovewe 5y ago
    Audacity is a GPL licensed public domain offline audio editor. There is nothing to compel such a nebulous community driven software effort to behave as you suggest. Not everything is made by companies, you know. This community software is being hijacked by a slimy corporate operator who is doing things we don’t have to accept, as such a code license means that they are not the owners of the code, we are. All that is required is a telemetry-free fork and bad publicity and removal from distros for the bad corporate actor. Ultimate Guitar are bad actors. Denounce them. They certainly are cheeky, putting something they didn’t make out with a new skin that phones home.
Nextgrid 5y ago
Audacity does not need to collect data and has successfully served its purpose for years without collecting any.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  It has served its purpose with a shoddy UI. Can you blame them for wanting to improve it? Telemetry helps with that.
  - stan_rogers 5y ago
    No, user testing helps with that. It's something you do before you ship.
    - moogly 5y ago
      For an application that is used by hundreds of thousands to millions of people, user testing does not scale and will never be representative.
  - eyelovewe 5y ago
    Like loan sharks care about helping poor people. No thanks to predators offering help. Audacity ui worked fine for me for over a decade. Your opinion otherwise doesn’t justify such rapacious behavior on the part of Ultimate Guitar, who basically hijacked a community project for their own ends. Bad faith actor, and I’m having trouble seeing your comment as innocent. Who do you work for here? I find your association of good ui and telemetry to be highly suspect and certainly not logical. Feel free to correct my ignorance and elaborate on your strange proposal. NSA backdoors don’t make themselves, there’s always that special someone on every committee
  - BoxOfRain 5y ago
    I’d take a shoddy UI and no spyware over a good UI that’s spying on me despite being an offline application. I’ve used Audacity for years and I shan’t be upgrading until a spyware-free fork is available. Ultimate Guitar have a history of abusive behaviour towards open source projects and I sincerely hope this is a PR catastrophe for them.
grishka 5y ago
Except Audacity is a fully local audio editor. It doesn't need to know that the internet is a thing at all. It has no business creating network sockets.
ekianjo 5y ago
Why do you need to collect IP addresses for what is an offline audio editing tool?
heavyset_go 5y ago
I've made this point before[1]: > Courts can compel them to log this information, so all claims about not keeping logs are just theater. The second they're ordered to by a court in the US, they will. But the consensus around here seemed to be that courts can't do that[2]. Maybe the story is that people now know that courts can, indeed, do that. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27531149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27531149 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27533701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27533701
- ViViDboarder 5y ago
  Are you a lawyer? Why are you more credible than anyone else on this matter? We have, in fact, seen companies publicly push back on doing additional work by claiming that it was an undue burden on them when they are not a defendant. If I recall, this was one of Apples arguments when they were involved in their well publicized case with the FBI. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/17/467096705/apple-the-fbi-and-iphone-encryption-a-look-at-whats-at-stake https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/17/467096705... I’m not a lawyer, so maybe I missed something.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

Every legitimate company will comply with court orders. What's the story here?

speedgoose 5y ago

They don't have to collect data. It's an offline audio editor.

IshKebab 5y ago
They do if the law forces them to. Audacity are just writing the way things are.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  In which country does the law force offline applications to collect user's information?
- eyelovewe 5y ago
  Audacity is a GPL licensed public domain offline audio editor. There is nothing to compel such a nebulous community driven software effort to behave as you suggest. Not everything is made by companies, you know. This community software is being hijacked by a slimy corporate operator who is doing things we don’t have to accept, as such a code license means that they are not the owners of the code, we are. All that is required is a telemetry-free fork and bad publicity and removal from distros for the bad corporate actor. Ultimate Guitar are bad actors. Denounce them. They certainly are cheeky, putting something they didn’t make out with a new skin that phones home.

Nextgrid 5y ago

Audacity does not need to collect data and has successfully served its purpose for years without collecting any.

IshKebab 5y ago
It has served its purpose with a shoddy UI. Can you blame them for wanting to improve it? Telemetry helps with that.
- stan_rogers 5y ago
  No, user testing helps with that. It's something you do before you ship.
  - moogly 5y ago
    For an application that is used by hundreds of thousands to millions of people, user testing does not scale and will never be representative.
- eyelovewe 5y ago
  Like loan sharks care about helping poor people. No thanks to predators offering help. Audacity ui worked fine for me for over a decade. Your opinion otherwise doesn’t justify such rapacious behavior on the part of Ultimate Guitar, who basically hijacked a community project for their own ends. Bad faith actor, and I’m having trouble seeing your comment as innocent. Who do you work for here? I find your association of good ui and telemetry to be highly suspect and certainly not logical. Feel free to correct my ignorance and elaborate on your strange proposal. NSA backdoors don’t make themselves, there’s always that special someone on every committee
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  I’d take a shoddy UI and no spyware over a good UI that’s spying on me despite being an offline application. I’ve used Audacity for years and I shan’t be upgrading until a spyware-free fork is available. Ultimate Guitar have a history of abusive behaviour towards open source projects and I sincerely hope this is a PR catastrophe for them.

grishka 5y ago

Except Audacity is a fully local audio editor. It doesn't need to know that the internet is a thing at all. It has no business creating network sockets.

ekianjo 5y ago

Why do you need to collect IP addresses for what is an offline audio editing tool?

heavyset_go 5y ago

I've made this point before[1]: > Courts can compel them to log this information, so all claims about not keeping logs are just theater. The second they're ordered to by a court in the US, they will. But the consensus around here seemed to be that courts can't do that[2]. Maybe the story is that people now know that courts can, indeed, do that. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27531149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27531149 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27533701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27533701

ViViDboarder 5y ago
Are you a lawyer? Why are you more credible than anyone else on this matter? We have, in fact, seen companies publicly push back on doing additional work by claiming that it was an undue burden on them when they are not a defendant. If I recall, this was one of Apples arguments when they were involved in their well publicized case with the FBI. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/17/467096705/apple-the-fbi-and-iphone-encryption-a-look-at-whats-at-stake https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/17/467096705... I’m not a lawyer, so maybe I missed something.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]