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"Everybody"? Emacs does not. vim does not. OpenSSH does not. Python does not. ffmpeg does not. I think this is a culture-clash question. Open source software g

by geofft 5y ago

"Everybody"? Emacs does not. vim does not. OpenSSH does not. Python does not. ffmpeg does not. I think this is a culture-clash question. Open source software generally does no automated crash reporting. Some software like the Rust compiler will print out a crash report and ask you to copy/paste it into a GitHub issue on your own; you can decide not to. The general cultural assumption is that if you want the software to get better, you have to participate, and if you don't participate, the developers don't owe it to you to fix your crashes. In fact, with the software I mentioned above, you generally don't even get it directly from the developer; you get it from a redistributor like a Linux distro, who may have modified it. Therefore it may not even make sense to send crash reports directly to the original developers, and the social contract is between you and the redistributor. Some open-source software like VLC does prompt you to send crash reports if you want, but it doesn't send them by default, and their data collection terms say nothing about law enforcement (https://www.videolan.org/privacy.html https://www.videolan.org/privacy.html Some open-source software that operates at a scale that resembles traditional "shrink-wrapped" (conceptually) software does even more telemetry - Firefox, for instance, but even so it doesn't say anything about collecting data for law enforcement: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/ There's also a world of closed-source software where there isn't any culture of participation and where asking a user to file a bug makes little sense. This is the world of Windows and macOS and mobile apps, all of which do automated crash reports. This is the world of web analytics tools that track exactly where your mouse cursor pointed so developers can build more intuitive websites, and more generally, the world in which software runs online and server-side because it helps developers. The social contract here is that the developers improve the software fix bugs without your active participation, and in turn the software needs to send them data about how you use it - both crash reports and general usage data - on its own, without you doing anything. The real question is which world Audacity now lives in. A clause like "data necessary for law enforcement" is perfectly standard for websites, and probably they copied and pasted it from some standard terms of service document. But can you imagine Emacs or Python having such terms?

rattray 5y ago
I don't understand why you're comparing Audacity to Python. ffmpeg would be a much better comparison to emacs or python – and I admit I'd be surprised if ffmpeg was emitting telemetry like crash reports. Audacity's more comparable peer would be Adobe Photoshop. I'd expect crash reports in a GUI app like either of these. I'd also expect that anyone with data on a server would need a clause like "data necessary for law enforcement". I would not expect that law enforcement regularly hounds Adobe for data from crash reports.
- geofft 5y ago
  Well, I'm making that comparison because Audacity is - historically - an open-source app created by volunteers (originally created by a CMU professor and grad student). That's why I think it's a culture thing. (Emacs is a GUI app too, so the line isn't quite "GUI apps." Or maybe consider Signal vs. Facebook Messenger.) Is it part of the culture of open-source programs like Emacs and ffmpeg, or is it part of the culture of closed-source programs like Photoshop and Facebook? I do actually think Firefox is a very interesting comparison here, because despite coming from the open-source culture, they collect extensive telemetry and they do work in a model where they can't expect user participation. But they in fact have no clause about data necessary for law enforcement. (I'm also not defending Firefox as perfect, and a complication of Firefox is that it's designed to be used with an internet connection anyway. Audacity is an app that makes perfect sense to use offline. So was Photoshop, for that matter.) In any case, the clause itself is not the interesting part; the interesting part is the implication that they have enough data to be interesting to law enforcement. Adobe and Facebook certainly do; whether or not it's used, it's there, and there are so many other reasons to be concerned about the data existing (rogue employees, hacks/leaks, etc.). The developers of Emacs clearly don't. I would guess the developers of Firefox try to avoid it, which is why Firefox doesn't need such a clause.
  - rattray 5y ago
    > the implication that they have enough data to be interesting to law enforcement I definitely agree that this is what people are upset about, it just seems like an overreaction. After all, that's probably not why they added the line – it's probably just part of the boilerplate used by their new lawyers.

by geofft 5y ago

rattray 5y ago

I don't understand why you're comparing Audacity to Python. ffmpeg would be a much better comparison to emacs or python – and I admit I'd be surprised if ffmpeg was emitting telemetry like crash reports. Audacity's more comparable peer would be Adobe Photoshop. I'd expect crash reports in a GUI app like either of these. I'd also expect that anyone with data on a server would need a clause like "data necessary for law enforcement". I would not expect that law enforcement regularly hounds Adobe for data from crash reports.

geofft 5y ago
Well, I'm making that comparison because Audacity is - historically - an open-source app created by volunteers (originally created by a CMU professor and grad student). That's why I think it's a culture thing. (Emacs is a GUI app too, so the line isn't quite "GUI apps." Or maybe consider Signal vs. Facebook Messenger.) Is it part of the culture of open-source programs like Emacs and ffmpeg, or is it part of the culture of closed-source programs like Photoshop and Facebook? I do actually think Firefox is a very interesting comparison here, because despite coming from the open-source culture, they collect extensive telemetry and they do work in a model where they can't expect user participation. But they in fact have no clause about data necessary for law enforcement. (I'm also not defending Firefox as perfect, and a complication of Firefox is that it's designed to be used with an internet connection anyway. Audacity is an app that makes perfect sense to use offline. So was Photoshop, for that matter.) In any case, the clause itself is not the interesting part; the interesting part is the implication that they have enough data to be interesting to law enforcement. Adobe and Facebook certainly do; whether or not it's used, it's there, and there are so many other reasons to be concerned about the data existing (rogue employees, hacks/leaks, etc.). The developers of Emacs clearly don't. I would guess the developers of Firefox try to avoid it, which is why Firefox doesn't need such a clause.
- rattray 5y ago
  > the implication that they have enough data to be interesting to law enforcement I definitely agree that this is what people are upset about, it just seems like an overreaction. After all, that's probably not why they added the line – it's probably just part of the boilerplate used by their new lawyers.