7 ms·

Tenacity: Floss Audacity Fork

82 points by yewenjie 5y ago

djur 5y ago
Is the implication that Audacity is no longer "FLOSS"?
- CharlesW 5y ago
  That's how I read it. Since Audacity is FOSS, I'm inferring that the developers believe that Audacity's new telemetry capabilities conflict with the "L" = "free as in freedom" bit of FLOSS.
  - xbar 5y ago
    I would guess that all three of the listed concerns are "free as in freedon" concerns.
- npongratz 5y ago
  The README appears to be explicit about the team's reasons for forking: https://github.com/tenacityteam/tenacity#why-did-this-project-fork-audacityaudacity https://github.com/tenacityteam/tenacity#why-did-this-projec... To quote: Why did this project fork audacity/audacity? You can find more information on the causes of the fork here: Privacy policy which may violate the original project's GPL license [0] Contributer's License Agreement (CLA) which may violate the same GPL license [1] Attempts at adding telemetry using Google services for data collection [2] [0] https://github.com/audacity/audacity/issues/1213 https://github.com/audacity/audacity/issues/1213 [1] https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/932 https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/932 [2] https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835 https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835
  - djur 5y ago
    I read that, which is why I asked the question. None of those concerns make the original Audacity not "FLOSS". Telemetry (which was opt-in and not merged), crash reporting, etc. do not make software non-free. CLAs do not violate the GPL -- the FSF uses a CLA for GNU projects. So neither of these make Audacity non-FLOSS. The privacy policy language is not binding and does not override the GPL. I think including it was a mistake and that it should be removed, solving the problem. Plenty of proprietary software (Windows, etc.) has crash reporting and telemetry and doesn't have a blanket "no kids allowed" policy, and Microsoft has better lawyers than Muse Group. It would certainly be a good idea for Audacity to, by policy, enforce that any kind of crash reporting, auto-updating, analytics, etc. is opt-in. Perhaps the existence of a fork will push them to do this.
    - mcguire 5y ago
      "Telemetry (which was opt-in and not merged), crash reporting, etc. do not make software non-free." Collecting "telemetry" on minors, specifically under 13, without the minors' parents permission is illegal. In order to collect telemetry, they have to restrict the application's use to those over 13 (added to their privacy policy, for some reason, but I suspect that would not be satisfactory), which violates the "no restrictions on use" clause from the GPL.
      - zxzax 5y ago
        >which violates the "no restrictions on use" clause from the GPL This seems to be a bad interpretation. This is not adding restrictions on use, this is complying with other legal restrictions that are already there. If that were true, you wouldn't be able to have things like chat clients be GPL, because the same restrictions would apply there with allowing chat servers to collect data.
        mcguire 5y ago
        The GPL and the FSF legal eagles have a long history of replying, "Then you can't have things like that. Sorry." I suspect there would also be an argument that an intentional distributed system like a chat client/server would be a different beast from an application like an audio editor.
      - djur 5y ago
        COPPA restrictions only "appl[y] to an operator of a general audience website if it has actual knowledge that a particular visitor is a child"[1]. As for GDPR, crash reports and auto-updating seem likely to fall under "legitimate interests", which means that the requirements for parental consent would not apply. Any interpretation of GDPR expansive enough to prohibit children from using software containing an auto-updater would also certainly prohibit them from sending an email or browsing most websites. [1]: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/complying-coppa-frequently-asked-questions-0 https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/com...
teraflop 5y ago
Notably, the previous maintainer of this fork stepped down a couple of days ago, after a harassment campaign from 4chan allegedly escalated to a violent attack. https://github.com/tenacityteam/tenacity/issues/99 https://github.com/tenacityteam/tenacity/issues/99
- legostormtroopr 5y ago
  This is a gross oversimplification of the matter. This fork asked the public for names (mistake) and when they didn't like the most popular name they disqualfied it, and labelled any attempts to ask why as trolling. Given that the Tenacity team wanted to be a fork for everyone, having their first action be refusing a popular vote was a bad look and things allegedly escalated from there.
  - Arnavion 5y ago
    To be clear, regardless of whether they did an internet poll properly or not, doling out physical violence because of it was not justified in any way.
    - gsich 5y ago
      I don't know if there is evidence for that.
      - Arnavion 5y ago
        Sure, I'm not saying I have any. The original post already said "allegedly" so I didn't feel the need to repeat it.
      - user-the-name 5y ago
        Every single time 4chan or one of its offspring cause real-world damage, the first thing its users will say is always "there is no evidence". Every single time. Happened when KiwiFarms drove an innocent person to suicide a few weeks back as well. It is cowardly and disgusting, and I do not want to hear it ever again.
albertzeyer 5y ago
Related: Two Audacity Forks called "Tenacity" and "Sneedacity" are crusading among themselves to be the true heir/successor of Audacity https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/og0csv/two_audacity_forks_called_tenacity_and_sneedacity/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/og0csv/two_aud...
legostormtroopr 5y ago
This is the third time this fork has shown up on HackerNews in as many days, and all I've seen from this new group is bikeshedding and drama. They are more focused on picking a name, logo and who is in charge than they are on pushing releases. By comparison, Sneedcity is already making changes and pushing releases out. IMO this is a group that is more interested in "owning" a popular open-source project than they are maintaining an open-source project. Someone saw the Audacity drama as an opportunity to pad their resume by "running" an open-source project. As ESR pointed out forks live and die by the legitimacy of the broader community, and so far I haven't seen anything from these team that suggests they are legitimate.
- meibo 5y ago
  It's also funny to me that they're still linking to original Audacity resources and forums. Will be interesting to see if they'll actually "maintain" it or just merge upstream once in a while and do releases.
Zababa 5y ago
Note that 4chan is usually archived by third-parties, if you want to look at what's said on it, try https://desuarchive.org/g/ https://desuarchive.org/g/. Some posts appear to have been deleted (the ones with cookieengineer personal information for example). Standard disclaimer that this is just a tip for information and not a statement endorsing anything about this whole affair.
not2b 5y ago
The Ars Technica people think that the problems have already been addressed months ago: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/no-open-source-audacity-audio-editor-is-not-spyware/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/no-open-source-audac...
pelagicAustral 5y ago
Sneed

82 points by yewenjie 5y ago

djur 5y ago

Is the implication that Audacity is no longer "FLOSS"?

CharlesW 5y ago
That's how I read it. Since Audacity is FOSS, I'm inferring that the developers believe that Audacity's new telemetry capabilities conflict with the "L" = "free as in freedom" bit of FLOSS.
- xbar 5y ago
  I would guess that all three of the listed concerns are "free as in freedon" concerns.
npongratz 5y ago
The README appears to be explicit about the team's reasons for forking: https://github.com/tenacityteam/tenacity#why-did-this-project-fork-audacityaudacity https://github.com/tenacityteam/tenacity#why-did-this-projec... To quote: Why did this project fork audacity/audacity? You can find more information on the causes of the fork here: Privacy policy which may violate the original project's GPL license [0] Contributer's License Agreement (CLA) which may violate the same GPL license [1] Attempts at adding telemetry using Google services for data collection [2] [0] https://github.com/audacity/audacity/issues/1213 https://github.com/audacity/audacity/issues/1213 [1] https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/932 https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/932 [2] https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835 https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835
- djur 5y ago
  I read that, which is why I asked the question. None of those concerns make the original Audacity not "FLOSS". Telemetry (which was opt-in and not merged), crash reporting, etc. do not make software non-free. CLAs do not violate the GPL -- the FSF uses a CLA for GNU projects. So neither of these make Audacity non-FLOSS. The privacy policy language is not binding and does not override the GPL. I think including it was a mistake and that it should be removed, solving the problem. Plenty of proprietary software (Windows, etc.) has crash reporting and telemetry and doesn't have a blanket "no kids allowed" policy, and Microsoft has better lawyers than Muse Group. It would certainly be a good idea for Audacity to, by policy, enforce that any kind of crash reporting, auto-updating, analytics, etc. is opt-in. Perhaps the existence of a fork will push them to do this.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    "Telemetry (which was opt-in and not merged), crash reporting, etc. do not make software non-free." Collecting "telemetry" on minors, specifically under 13, without the minors' parents permission is illegal. In order to collect telemetry, they have to restrict the application's use to those over 13 (added to their privacy policy, for some reason, but I suspect that would not be satisfactory), which violates the "no restrictions on use" clause from the GPL.
    - zxzax 5y ago
      >which violates the "no restrictions on use" clause from the GPL This seems to be a bad interpretation. This is not adding restrictions on use, this is complying with other legal restrictions that are already there. If that were true, you wouldn't be able to have things like chat clients be GPL, because the same restrictions would apply there with allowing chat servers to collect data.
      - mcguire 5y ago
        The GPL and the FSF legal eagles have a long history of replying, "Then you can't have things like that. Sorry." I suspect there would also be an argument that an intentional distributed system like a chat client/server would be a different beast from an application like an audio editor.
    - djur 5y ago
      COPPA restrictions only "appl[y] to an operator of a general audience website if it has actual knowledge that a particular visitor is a child"[1]. As for GDPR, crash reports and auto-updating seem likely to fall under "legitimate interests", which means that the requirements for parental consent would not apply. Any interpretation of GDPR expansive enough to prohibit children from using software containing an auto-updater would also certainly prohibit them from sending an email or browsing most websites. [1]: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/complying-coppa-frequently-asked-questions-0 https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/com...

teraflop 5y ago

Notably, the previous maintainer of this fork stepped down a couple of days ago, after a harassment campaign from 4chan allegedly escalated to a violent attack. https://github.com/tenacityteam/tenacity/issues/99 https://github.com/tenacityteam/tenacity/issues/99

legostormtroopr 5y ago
This is a gross oversimplification of the matter. This fork asked the public for names (mistake) and when they didn't like the most popular name they disqualfied it, and labelled any attempts to ask why as trolling. Given that the Tenacity team wanted to be a fork for everyone, having their first action be refusing a popular vote was a bad look and things allegedly escalated from there.
- Arnavion 5y ago
  To be clear, regardless of whether they did an internet poll properly or not, doling out physical violence because of it was not justified in any way.
  - gsich 5y ago
    I don't know if there is evidence for that.
    - Arnavion 5y ago
      Sure, I'm not saying I have any. The original post already said "allegedly" so I didn't feel the need to repeat it.
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      Every single time 4chan or one of its offspring cause real-world damage, the first thing its users will say is always "there is no evidence". Every single time. Happened when KiwiFarms drove an innocent person to suicide a few weeks back as well. It is cowardly and disgusting, and I do not want to hear it ever again.

albertzeyer 5y ago

Related: Two Audacity Forks called "Tenacity" and "Sneedacity" are crusading among themselves to be the true heir/successor of Audacity https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/og0csv/two_audacity_forks_called_tenacity_and_sneedacity/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/og0csv/two_aud...

legostormtroopr 5y ago

This is the third time this fork has shown up on HackerNews in as many days, and all I've seen from this new group is bikeshedding and drama. They are more focused on picking a name, logo and who is in charge than they are on pushing releases. By comparison, Sneedcity is already making changes and pushing releases out. IMO this is a group that is more interested in "owning" a popular open-source project than they are maintaining an open-source project. Someone saw the Audacity drama as an opportunity to pad their resume by "running" an open-source project. As ESR pointed out forks live and die by the legitimacy of the broader community, and so far I haven't seen anything from these team that suggests they are legitimate.

meibo 5y ago
It's also funny to me that they're still linking to original Audacity resources and forums. Will be interesting to see if they'll actually "maintain" it or just merge upstream once in a while and do releases.

Zababa 5y ago

Note that 4chan is usually archived by third-parties, if you want to look at what's said on it, try https://desuarchive.org/g/ https://desuarchive.org/g/. Some posts appear to have been deleted (the ones with cookieengineer personal information for example). Standard disclaimer that this is just a tip for information and not a statement endorsing anything about this whole affair.

not2b 5y ago

The Ars Technica people think that the problems have already been addressed months ago: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/no-open-source-audacity-audio-editor-is-not-spyware/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/no-open-source-audac...

pelagicAustral 5y ago

Sneed