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 s

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.