18 ms·

Am I the only one who thinks this is kind of petty? It's not like Audacity is trying to read your email (or even rip off your tracks). The telemetry I'm reading

Am I the only one who thinks this is kind of petty? It's not like Audacity is trying to read your email (or even rip off your tracks). The telemetry I'm reading about is literally: 1. error reporting - the user has to click a button to share crash logs. It's basically a macro to help the user create a support ticket. 2. version checking - no PII information being kept, literally just helping the developer get an idea of what versions they need to be supporting--you do want them to support the version you're running, right? Well, if not, you can turn it off. What's the big deal?

IgorPartola 5y ago
My guess is that GitHub where the code is hosted collects way more telemetry than this and nobody bats an eye at that.
- gentleman11 5y ago
  Nobody? I’ve been giving some thought to https://sr.ht/ https://sr.ht/ recently because of that sort of thing
  - zxzax 5y ago
    Please make sure you check the privacy policy there as well: https://man.sr.ht/privacy.md https://man.sr.ht/privacy.md It's not clear what sort of thing you're referring to, it's generally not possible to make a service where you have accounts and billing, that simultaneously doesn't store your information. The whole point of it is that you want it to store your information.
  - IgorPartola 5y ago
    Nobody is an absolutist statement. The people hosting this code clearly didn’t give this much thought. People downloading it likely won’t either.
- mumblemumble 5y ago
  Whatever telemetry GitHub collects is probably the least interesting stuff they have on me. What's way more revealing about me as a person is all the stuff that GitHub is collecting and storing about me because storing that information is exactly what GitHub is for: code I've written, interactions with people in issue discussions, billing information related to my account, projects I've starred, etc. Yes, they probably also know that I usually connect from an IP address in Chicago. And, while storing that information isn't strictly necessary, I'm also more-or-less 100% confident in saying that anyone who might want to keep tabs on me already knows I live in Chicago, and that would have been true 30 years ago, too. (Well, 30 years ago it was another town, but still.) I suppose a lot of this is maybe just a halo effect due to all the (quite legitimate) upset about surveillance capitalism? Which is fair. And perhaps we want to say that it's easier to try and shut down all telemetry than it is to distinguish legitimate telemetry from abusive telemetry. Lord knows, if we try to carve out any concept of legitimate telemetry, adtech companies will immediately go about probing it for loopholes.
  - protomyth 5y ago
    I do wonder if a company with a nasty non-compete would subpoena GitHub to get where and what time you logged on to see if you were at work and if you used a work laptop for a project. Also, GitHub is Microsoft and LinkedIn.
windsurfer 5y ago
Audacity may collect “Data necessary for law enforcement, litigation” and more: https://www.audacityteam.org/about/desktop-privacy-notice/ https://www.audacityteam.org/about/desktop-privacy-notice/
- ajross 5y ago
  Right, but that's just boilerplate you'll find on any such agreement. It means that they may be compelled legally to provide whatever information they collect and that you should be aware of that fact. It's not like they're secretly plotting ways to steal your secrets. Count me on Team Crash Report, for sure. Anyone who's worked on any kind of project like this knows how valuable live user telemetry is. These features make software better for all of us. If you really don't like them don't use them and carefully audit the opt-out mechanism to make sure it works. Don't throw poop on the walls.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    Yeah I’m kinda confused with the huge amount of anger surrounding this. Yes the text is scary, and it’s scary because being made aware that governments do have the power to make pretty much everyone turn over information they have on you isn’t fun. But this really isn’t Audacity’s problem specific.
    - Nextgrid 5y ago
      > governments do have the power to make pretty much everyone turn over information they have on you isn’t fun Unless you do not collect said information in the first place.
      - zxzax 5y ago
        With that, I would say good luck troubleshooting your server if you don't collect any logs whatsoever. I wonder how you would even protect against bruteforcing and DDOS attacks if you never stored IP addresses for any amount of time.
SquishyPanda23 5y ago
I think the issue is more that the group that bought Audacity had thrown several red flags, of which this is one. However, Audacity is cool and all, but I wonder if it would be better to create a simplified frontend based on Ardour, the way GarageBand is for Logic.
- nyanpasu64 5y ago
  Audacity is designed as an audio editor rather than a DAW. I'd be surprised if a DAW like Ardour had destructive editing, spectral analysis, or sample-level waveform view. From the UI perspective, I don't know if it has the ability to "open" an audio file and turn it into a single-file project, or if you can disable tempo sand best-based timings altogether (since podcasts and such lack a concept of tempo).
- IshKebab 5y ago
  Has it though? What are the red flags? The only thing they've done wrong IMO is using Google Analytics and they changed that pretty much as soon as this whole thing started. The telemetry has always been opt-in (though they didn't communicate that very well) and their privacy policy is just standard stuff.
  - SquishyPanda23 5y ago
    I haven't been following it closely, but in another thread on Audacity earlier today there was a threat by the Muse group saying that it was illegal to use their public API to download public domain content and that they would collaborate with China to physically track down developers who posted code that used the API. Or something like that. Again I haven't followed it. Honestly it looks a bit to me like the playbook you see when a project is sold to a private equity firm.
Nextgrid 5y ago
Telemetry creates a liability for the user for no benefit (and as Windows 10 demonstrates, the amount of telemetry is anti-correlated with software quality). Even if we assume there is no malicious intent from either the developer nor their infrastructure provider (their initial telemetry attempt was using Google Analytics which is definitely malicious), it can still be coopted by a malicious actor who is able to observe the network traffic or compromise the telemetry infrastructure and put the users at risk.
- throwaddzuzxd 5y ago
  > and as Windows 10 demonstrates, the amount of telemetry is anti-correlated with software quality What's wrong with Windows 10? I think it's great
  - AlexAffe 5y ago
    And an otherwise sane friend of mine thinks Alexa is dope. I guess it's always a matter of where you draw the line, I for my part, want to be in total control of who gets sent what concerning ALL my devices, and I think this should be my right as a citizen and customer.
- spixy 5y ago
  May I have a source for this anti-correlation please?
  - anoncake 5y ago
    Windows 10.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    Try to switch off the "telemetry" in Windows 10.
- sofixa 5y ago
  > their initial telemetry attempt was using Google Analytics which is definitely malicious) What's wrong with Google Analytics? As long as the ad retargeting bits aren't enabled ( they aren't by default), it's just a regular anonymous analytics solution.
stormbrew 5y ago
The former is probably not a big deal if you have to press a button -- nor would it require an eula clause I would expect, you could be informed of the data collection at the time you'd press the button. The latter though? Somehow the industry got by for decades without intimately knowing what version every single user of the software was running. I think they'll survive without it. Anyways, how is it "petty" to make a version of the software for which there is clear demand? No one stomped on their birthday cake, they just took an OSS piece of software and modified it, compiled it, and released it. In what world is there any malice in doing the exact thing an open source license exists to allow you to do?
- Archer6621 5y ago
  I think he rather meant that it is petty that people make such a big fuss about it.
- tiborsaas 5y ago
  Cars were doing fine before Euro NCAP and similar safety standards. Gaining knowledge about how your product is used is not inherently bad. Luckily if this bothers you then OSS works as intended, everyone can be happy.
- cyounkins 5y ago
  Despite leading the second paragraph in a way that suggests it's absurd to even ask, no reason was actually given. Why is version checking bad?
  - stormbrew 5y ago
    This is just backwards. Why is it good? I can see why the developer wants it, but a person wanting something is not inherent evidence of it being "good". I want lots of things that are bad for me, and even some things that are bad for other people. Here's the thing: In order to track version numbers, this developer now subjects its users to potential police surveillance. Even if that surveillance is "harmless" on its own, they have still made that bargain. And I feel like we're well past the point of credibly taking any given individual act of surveillance as being isolated and unentwined with more problematic kinds. Is that bargain really worth it?
chambers 5y ago
It doesn't help that the maintainer is already mishandling basic stuff like naming the repo: https://github.com/temporary-audacity/audacity/issues/33 https://github.com/temporary-audacity/audacity/issues/33. If the maintainer had waited out the initial flurry of attention, they probably could have chosen the name they wanted without much drama at all. Instead, they overreacted, deleted the first thread, and then immediately started editing and deleting user comments in the second. Ouch.
ezoe 5y ago
If my interpretation of the term is correct, by using Audacity, you are agreed that it can collect any data the authority request it. The data will be hosted on EU region but shared with Russia and USA too because they have branches on these countries. That's not what I expect from a software that require no remote server to function.
- Xylakant 5y ago
  The government can compel audacity (or rather the muse group) to anything, regardless of your consent to an EULA. The only remedy is the Muse group fighting a hypothetical order in court.
  - piaste 5y ago
    The government cannot compel the Muse group to do anything with data it doesn't have.
Exmoor 5y ago
I couldn't agree more. As someone who has used Audacity for many, many years and finds himself recommending it to people who have little to no prior computer audio experience I couldn't be more happy that there's some momentum towards improving the user interface and stability. It's not a bad program, but elements of the UI feel very dated and in my (admittedly edge-case) use I have to tip-toe to not cause crashes.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  The solution is a competent dev or two updating it to HIG standards, running some usability tests, copying the best in class design, etc. Telemetry is secondary at best, not necessary.
jbluepolarbear 5y ago
1. No, they could just as easily package the info and allow the user to upload the logs to an error reporting system/website. 2. No, off by default or ask on first boot. 3. What data are they collecting that would be shareable to law enforcement? The feds need to know I’m on an outdated version? I will not use or recommend Audacity anymore. It’s a shame, I really like Audacity and I’ve been using it since high school.
boublepop 5y ago
> Am I the only one who thinks this is kind of petty? Their new changes restricted use by individuals under 13. This is probably because they could run into trouble with GDPR with the personal data they are storing on users, which they have no good reason to store except that they can. Audacity is used in public schools. Forking to keep the project usable by children learning the craft is not petty, it’s a worthwhile thing to do. Ruining community trust so you can unnecessarily collect private information on your users, that is petty.
corobo 5y ago
In this I use the royal "you", I'm agreeing with the parent (it's early, my words often fall out wonky in the morning) While I do understand the underlying cause and indeed hate things that violate my privacy as much as the next nerd.. you guys know most software phones home for update checks right? Hell I'll tell you what. Unplug your router from the WAN side and wait a minute. See that popup there on all of your devices telling you you're offline? There's a connectivity check that's been giving out the exact same information the entire time you've had your OS installed I really do appreciate the vigilance and don't want to discourage the raw energy on display at all but this one might not be the cause to go all in on On the other side of my own argument it definitely won't hurt to chuck them a GDPR request in a month or two to see what they are gathering :)
- IncRnd 5y ago
  What is the royal you? You can be a 2nd person plural pronoun in addition to singular.
  - corobo 5y ago
    The royal you is me making up a phrase to mean "I'm using the word you to mean the reader, not you the person I am responding to" I thought it was pretty obvious but yea you got me. Good point, well made.
    - IncRnd 5y ago
      Thanks for the explanation. I had never heard of the royal you and couldn't find an explanation. I wasn't trying to "get you" just understand.
    - bmn__ 5y ago
      Just write "you (plural)" next time to make yourself easily understood.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
o8r3oFTZPE 5y ago
Looks like they removed auto-updates or at least automatic checking for updates. I think that's pretty neat. As the in other comments, this is an advantage of open source. Things can be removed. I only wish this was more common amongst other projects. Imagine Firefox forks with all the telemetry and other annoyances removed. With closed source software, good luck getting anything removed.
mattalex 5y ago
I think we have to see this in context: Muse group, a russian for-profit company that seems to have a shell-headquarters in Cyprus (see https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/muse-group https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/muse-group), recently acquired Audacity as part of their expansion into the broader audio-production world. As a first action, they changed their contributor License Agreement making a future change from a GPL license to a closed-source License possible. (it also allows for dual-licensing a paid version) https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/932 https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/932 They currently say they're not going to do that, but if they wanted to (and Muse-group is for-profit) they could without the contributor having any recourse. (They have already confirmed a cloud-service for Audacity, which for me already reeks like "we want to have closed-source tools that use our open-source contributors code"). Having a CLA isn't a problem in and off itself, for example, as they correctly state: the FSF requires a CLA because they want to license all their stuff as "GPL 3 or above", which is only possible using some CLA-mechanism. (it's also easier for them to defend GPL related lawsuits if they are the copyright holders) What MuseGroup forgets to mention, is that they are a for-profit company (https://opencorporates.com/companies/cy/HE411908 https://opencorporates.com/companies/cy/HE411908) while the FSF is a foundation (specifically a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization), which shifts their incentives a lot. Now, barely a month later, they add the option of collecting data from users and people aren't happy. It is, at the very least, very tone-deaf/stupid from them to add telemetrie only one month after (IMO) showing their hand for what we can expect for the future.
- twodave 5y ago
  Thanks, I was definitely missing some of this context. Forking is probably the appropriate response if the contributing community no longer trusts the acquiring company. In an active open-source project, the value of the software lies with the contributors anyway, so as long as they're unified Muse group doesn't have much power or recourse. That said, I personally think this fork is a clumsy attempt thus far. If there truly is a rift so wide as the parent comment claims, it probably calls for a total rebrand. The way it's currently positioned makes it look like the author is simply attempting to apply pressure to get Muse to change its behavior, but based on this context I doubt that's going to be a viable long-term strategy.

IgorPartola 5y ago

My guess is that GitHub where the code is hosted collects way more telemetry than this and nobody bats an eye at that.

gentleman11 5y ago
Nobody? I’ve been giving some thought to https://sr.ht/ https://sr.ht/ recently because of that sort of thing
- zxzax 5y ago
  Please make sure you check the privacy policy there as well: https://man.sr.ht/privacy.md https://man.sr.ht/privacy.md It's not clear what sort of thing you're referring to, it's generally not possible to make a service where you have accounts and billing, that simultaneously doesn't store your information. The whole point of it is that you want it to store your information.
- IgorPartola 5y ago
  Nobody is an absolutist statement. The people hosting this code clearly didn’t give this much thought. People downloading it likely won’t either.
mumblemumble 5y ago
Whatever telemetry GitHub collects is probably the least interesting stuff they have on me. What's way more revealing about me as a person is all the stuff that GitHub is collecting and storing about me because storing that information is exactly what GitHub is for: code I've written, interactions with people in issue discussions, billing information related to my account, projects I've starred, etc. Yes, they probably also know that I usually connect from an IP address in Chicago. And, while storing that information isn't strictly necessary, I'm also more-or-less 100% confident in saying that anyone who might want to keep tabs on me already knows I live in Chicago, and that would have been true 30 years ago, too. (Well, 30 years ago it was another town, but still.) I suppose a lot of this is maybe just a halo effect due to all the (quite legitimate) upset about surveillance capitalism? Which is fair. And perhaps we want to say that it's easier to try and shut down all telemetry than it is to distinguish legitimate telemetry from abusive telemetry. Lord knows, if we try to carve out any concept of legitimate telemetry, adtech companies will immediately go about probing it for loopholes.
- protomyth 5y ago
  I do wonder if a company with a nasty non-compete would subpoena GitHub to get where and what time you logged on to see if you were at work and if you used a work laptop for a project. Also, GitHub is Microsoft and LinkedIn.

windsurfer 5y ago

Audacity may collect “Data necessary for law enforcement, litigation” and more: https://www.audacityteam.org/about/desktop-privacy-notice/ https://www.audacityteam.org/about/desktop-privacy-notice/

ajross 5y ago
Right, but that's just boilerplate you'll find on any such agreement. It means that they may be compelled legally to provide whatever information they collect and that you should be aware of that fact. It's not like they're secretly plotting ways to steal your secrets. Count me on Team Crash Report, for sure. Anyone who's worked on any kind of project like this knows how valuable live user telemetry is. These features make software better for all of us. If you really don't like them don't use them and carefully audit the opt-out mechanism to make sure it works. Don't throw poop on the walls.
- Spivak 5y ago
  Yeah I’m kinda confused with the huge amount of anger surrounding this. Yes the text is scary, and it’s scary because being made aware that governments do have the power to make pretty much everyone turn over information they have on you isn’t fun. But this really isn’t Audacity’s problem specific.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    > governments do have the power to make pretty much everyone turn over information they have on you isn’t fun Unless you do not collect said information in the first place.
    - zxzax 5y ago
      With that, I would say good luck troubleshooting your server if you don't collect any logs whatsoever. I wonder how you would even protect against bruteforcing and DDOS attacks if you never stored IP addresses for any amount of time.

SquishyPanda23 5y ago

I think the issue is more that the group that bought Audacity had thrown several red flags, of which this is one. However, Audacity is cool and all, but I wonder if it would be better to create a simplified frontend based on Ardour, the way GarageBand is for Logic.

nyanpasu64 5y ago
Audacity is designed as an audio editor rather than a DAW. I'd be surprised if a DAW like Ardour had destructive editing, spectral analysis, or sample-level waveform view. From the UI perspective, I don't know if it has the ability to "open" an audio file and turn it into a single-file project, or if you can disable tempo sand best-based timings altogether (since podcasts and such lack a concept of tempo).
IshKebab 5y ago
Has it though? What are the red flags? The only thing they've done wrong IMO is using Google Analytics and they changed that pretty much as soon as this whole thing started. The telemetry has always been opt-in (though they didn't communicate that very well) and their privacy policy is just standard stuff.
- SquishyPanda23 5y ago
  I haven't been following it closely, but in another thread on Audacity earlier today there was a threat by the Muse group saying that it was illegal to use their public API to download public domain content and that they would collaborate with China to physically track down developers who posted code that used the API. Or something like that. Again I haven't followed it. Honestly it looks a bit to me like the playbook you see when a project is sold to a private equity firm.

Nextgrid 5y ago

Telemetry creates a liability for the user for no benefit (and as Windows 10 demonstrates, the amount of telemetry is anti-correlated with software quality). Even if we assume there is no malicious intent from either the developer nor their infrastructure provider (their initial telemetry attempt was using Google Analytics which is definitely malicious), it can still be coopted by a malicious actor who is able to observe the network traffic or compromise the telemetry infrastructure and put the users at risk.

throwaddzuzxd 5y ago
> and as Windows 10 demonstrates, the amount of telemetry is anti-correlated with software quality What's wrong with Windows 10? I think it's great
- AlexAffe 5y ago
  And an otherwise sane friend of mine thinks Alexa is dope. I guess it's always a matter of where you draw the line, I for my part, want to be in total control of who gets sent what concerning ALL my devices, and I think this should be my right as a citizen and customer.
spixy 5y ago
May I have a source for this anti-correlation please?
- anoncake 5y ago
  Windows 10.
- fsflover 5y ago
  Try to switch off the "telemetry" in Windows 10.
sofixa 5y ago
> their initial telemetry attempt was using Google Analytics which is definitely malicious) What's wrong with Google Analytics? As long as the ad retargeting bits aren't enabled ( they aren't by default), it's just a regular anonymous analytics solution.

stormbrew 5y ago

The former is probably not a big deal if you have to press a button -- nor would it require an eula clause I would expect, you could be informed of the data collection at the time you'd press the button. The latter though? Somehow the industry got by for decades without intimately knowing what version every single user of the software was running. I think they'll survive without it. Anyways, how is it "petty" to make a version of the software for which there is clear demand? No one stomped on their birthday cake, they just took an OSS piece of software and modified it, compiled it, and released it. In what world is there any malice in doing the exact thing an open source license exists to allow you to do?

Archer6621 5y ago
I think he rather meant that it is petty that people make such a big fuss about it.
tiborsaas 5y ago
Cars were doing fine before Euro NCAP and similar safety standards. Gaining knowledge about how your product is used is not inherently bad. Luckily if this bothers you then OSS works as intended, everyone can be happy.
cyounkins 5y ago
Despite leading the second paragraph in a way that suggests it's absurd to even ask, no reason was actually given. Why is version checking bad?
- stormbrew 5y ago
  This is just backwards. Why is it good? I can see why the developer wants it, but a person wanting something is not inherent evidence of it being "good". I want lots of things that are bad for me, and even some things that are bad for other people. Here's the thing: In order to track version numbers, this developer now subjects its users to potential police surveillance. Even if that surveillance is "harmless" on its own, they have still made that bargain. And I feel like we're well past the point of credibly taking any given individual act of surveillance as being isolated and unentwined with more problematic kinds. Is that bargain really worth it?

chambers 5y ago

It doesn't help that the maintainer is already mishandling basic stuff like naming the repo: https://github.com/temporary-audacity/audacity/issues/33 https://github.com/temporary-audacity/audacity/issues/33. If the maintainer had waited out the initial flurry of attention, they probably could have chosen the name they wanted without much drama at all. Instead, they overreacted, deleted the first thread, and then immediately started editing and deleting user comments in the second. Ouch.

ezoe 5y ago

If my interpretation of the term is correct, by using Audacity, you are agreed that it can collect any data the authority request it. The data will be hosted on EU region but shared with Russia and USA too because they have branches on these countries. That's not what I expect from a software that require no remote server to function.

Xylakant 5y ago
The government can compel audacity (or rather the muse group) to anything, regardless of your consent to an EULA. The only remedy is the Muse group fighting a hypothetical order in court.
- piaste 5y ago
  The government cannot compel the Muse group to do anything with data it doesn't have.

Exmoor 5y ago

I couldn't agree more. As someone who has used Audacity for many, many years and finds himself recommending it to people who have little to no prior computer audio experience I couldn't be more happy that there's some momentum towards improving the user interface and stability. It's not a bad program, but elements of the UI feel very dated and in my (admittedly edge-case) use I have to tip-toe to not cause crashes.

mixmastamyk 5y ago
The solution is a competent dev or two updating it to HIG standards, running some usability tests, copying the best in class design, etc. Telemetry is secondary at best, not necessary.

jbluepolarbear 5y ago

1. No, they could just as easily package the info and allow the user to upload the logs to an error reporting system/website. 2. No, off by default or ask on first boot. 3. What data are they collecting that would be shareable to law enforcement? The feds need to know I’m on an outdated version? I will not use or recommend Audacity anymore. It’s a shame, I really like Audacity and I’ve been using it since high school.

boublepop 5y ago

> Am I the only one who thinks this is kind of petty? Their new changes restricted use by individuals under 13. This is probably because they could run into trouble with GDPR with the personal data they are storing on users, which they have no good reason to store except that they can. Audacity is used in public schools. Forking to keep the project usable by children learning the craft is not petty, it’s a worthwhile thing to do. Ruining community trust so you can unnecessarily collect private information on your users, that is petty.

corobo 5y ago

In this I use the royal "you", I'm agreeing with the parent (it's early, my words often fall out wonky in the morning) While I do understand the underlying cause and indeed hate things that violate my privacy as much as the next nerd.. you guys know most software phones home for update checks right? Hell I'll tell you what. Unplug your router from the WAN side and wait a minute. See that popup there on all of your devices telling you you're offline? There's a connectivity check that's been giving out the exact same information the entire time you've had your OS installed I really do appreciate the vigilance and don't want to discourage the raw energy on display at all but this one might not be the cause to go all in on On the other side of my own argument it definitely won't hurt to chuck them a GDPR request in a month or two to see what they are gathering :)

IncRnd 5y ago
What is the royal you? You can be a 2nd person plural pronoun in addition to singular.
- corobo 5y ago
  The royal you is me making up a phrase to mean "I'm using the word you to mean the reader, not you the person I am responding to" I thought it was pretty obvious but yea you got me. Good point, well made.
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    Thanks for the explanation. I had never heard of the royal you and couldn't find an explanation. I wasn't trying to "get you" just understand.
  - bmn__ 5y ago
    Just write "you (plural)" next time to make yourself easily understood.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

o8r3oFTZPE 5y ago

Looks like they removed auto-updates or at least automatic checking for updates. I think that's pretty neat. As the in other comments, this is an advantage of open source. Things can be removed. I only wish this was more common amongst other projects. Imagine Firefox forks with all the telemetry and other annoyances removed. With closed source software, good luck getting anything removed.

mattalex 5y ago

I think we have to see this in context: Muse group, a russian for-profit company that seems to have a shell-headquarters in Cyprus (see https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/muse-group https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/muse-group), recently acquired Audacity as part of their expansion into the broader audio-production world. As a first action, they changed their contributor License Agreement making a future change from a GPL license to a closed-source License possible. (it also allows for dual-licensing a paid version) https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/932 https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/932 They currently say they're not going to do that, but if they wanted to (and Muse-group is for-profit) they could without the contributor having any recourse. (They have already confirmed a cloud-service for Audacity, which for me already reeks like "we want to have closed-source tools that use our open-source contributors code"). Having a CLA isn't a problem in and off itself, for example, as they correctly state: the FSF requires a CLA because they want to license all their stuff as "GPL 3 or above", which is only possible using some CLA-mechanism. (it's also easier for them to defend GPL related lawsuits if they are the copyright holders) What MuseGroup forgets to mention, is that they are a for-profit company (https://opencorporates.com/companies/cy/HE411908 https://opencorporates.com/companies/cy/HE411908) while the FSF is a foundation (specifically a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization), which shifts their incentives a lot. Now, barely a month later, they add the option of collecting data from users and people aren't happy. It is, at the very least, very tone-deaf/stupid from them to add telemetrie only one month after (IMO) showing their hand for what we can expect for the future.

twodave 5y ago
Thanks, I was definitely missing some of this context. Forking is probably the appropriate response if the contributing community no longer trusts the acquiring company. In an active open-source project, the value of the software lies with the contributors anyway, so as long as they're unified Muse group doesn't have much power or recourse. That said, I personally think this fork is a clumsy attempt thus far. If there truly is a rift so wide as the parent comment claims, it probably calls for a total rebrand. The way it's currently positioned makes it look like the author is simply attempting to apply pressure to get Muse to change its behavior, but based on this context I doubt that's going to be a viable long-term strategy.