3 ms·

For anyone looking, I’m sure they’ll revert it soon: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KpdSKD8-Rn0bWPTu4UtK54ks0yv2j22pA5SrAD9av4s/edit https://docs.google.co

by jer0me 5y ago

For anyone looking, I’m sure they’ll revert it soon: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KpdSKD8-Rn0bWPTu4UtK54ks0yv2j22pA5SrAD9av4s/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KpdSKD8-Rn0bWPTu4UtK54ks...

danShumway 5y ago
I understand why people use Google Docs, it's a very convenient platform. But this is a technical document about browser features, I'm a little frustrated that this is being coordinated over a proprietary SaaS service instead of over Git[0] with markdown or something. I think a lot more than that, I'm frustrated that the document is being made publicly available on that platform. When someone links to a web standard on Github, often it's because the standard is seeing active participation. For something that is being linked to a public view, I would have loved to see at least a PDF export or something. It's not that it's completely inexcusable, I'm sure Mozilla is making use of Google Doc features, markups, contribution history, whatever. It is just disappointing to see that apparently there isn't an Open collaboration platform that Mozilla thinks is good enough for this process, even a self-hosted one. It's not the biggest deal in the world, it just feels like a bad look to see Mozilla tout that it's built this great standard, and then click on the link and get sent to a Google Doc. I mean... this article is about privacy, if I'm currently signed into Google and I click on this link, does it mean anything that Google now knows I personally clicked on it? I know it's not the end of the world, but Mozilla literally just finished telling me how good it was at anonymizing data, and now it's leaking my reading habits to Google in an extremely targeted, de-anonymized form. ---- [0]: Yes, I know that many standards processes on the web use Github, which is also a proprietary SaaS, but at least the majority of that process (issue tracker aside) is usable just as an endpoint.
- rascul 5y ago
  > It is just disappointing to see that apparently there isn't an Open collaboration platform that Mozilla thinks is good enough for this process, even a self-hosted one. Mozilla has been hosting an EtherPad instance for some time now, which may have worked in place of Google Docs for this. https://pad.mozilla.org https://pad.mozilla.org
- dessant 5y ago
  A large portion of Firefox development activity is hidden away in private documents on Google Docs. They are not concerned. https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/5410 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/5410
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    > This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Sadly that's not the only thing that will be closed if Mozilla keep focusing on the wrong things.
  - danShumway 5y ago
    Blegh... it's disappointing to see this on the linked blogpost, but it's a lot more disappointing to see it for wikis directly relevant to a Github repo. Again, I know that Github is also SaaS, but there's a difference. That kind of stuff should be handled differently.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    And Jira.
- iqanq 5y ago
  >But this is a technical document about browser features, I'm a little frustrated that this is being coordinated over a proprietary SaaS service instead of over Git[0] with markdown or something. Then maybe the public SaaS services should be of a better quality so that Mozilla employees want to use them. >I think a lot more than that, I'm frustrated that the document is being made publicly available on that platform. When someone links to a web standard on Github, often it's because the standard is seeing active participation. For something that is being linked to a public view, I would have loved to see at least a PDF export or something. There is a PDF export for google docs which is available to all users. File > Download > PDF.
  - danShumway 5y ago
    > Then maybe the public SaaS services should be of a better quality so that Mozilla employees want to use them. Maybe a company that has been throwing money into dozens of random privacy initiatives outside of the browser market (some good and some bad) would be a good fit for solving that problem? Dogfooding software is a really good strategy for UX design after all. > There is a PDF export for google docs which is available to all users. File > Download > PDF. That's exactly what I mean. Someone wrote this blog post, could they have hit the PDF export button and then linked to that PDF hosted on Mozilla's servers? That would have prevented the vandalism problem they ran into. The issue I have isn't that I can't export to PDF from Google Docs. The issue that I have is that I have to visit Google Docs and load a ton of proprietary Javascript just so I can hit a PDF export button. Google Docs has an API, Mozilla could have a script that's just auto-exporting a PDF and hosting it on a public endpoint on a regular interval.
rascul 5y ago
There seems to be access control on it now, as I get "Access denied" even while logged in.
Aachen 5y ago
So to read a proposal about ad tracking from Facebook, we need to use Google? There's some irony there I guess.

by jer0me 5y ago

danShumway 5y ago

I understand why people use Google Docs, it's a very convenient platform. But this is a technical document about browser features, I'm a little frustrated that this is being coordinated over a proprietary SaaS service instead of over Git[0] with markdown or something. I think a lot more than that, I'm frustrated that the document is being made publicly available on that platform. When someone links to a web standard on Github, often it's because the standard is seeing active participation. For something that is being linked to a public view, I would have loved to see at least a PDF export or something. It's not that it's completely inexcusable, I'm sure Mozilla is making use of Google Doc features, markups, contribution history, whatever. It is just disappointing to see that apparently there isn't an Open collaboration platform that Mozilla thinks is good enough for this process, even a self-hosted one. It's not the biggest deal in the world, it just feels like a bad look to see Mozilla tout that it's built this great standard, and then click on the link and get sent to a Google Doc. I mean... this article is about privacy, if I'm currently signed into Google and I click on this link, does it mean anything that Google now knows I personally clicked on it? I know it's not the end of the world, but Mozilla literally just finished telling me how good it was at anonymizing data, and now it's leaking my reading habits to Google in an extremely targeted, de-anonymized form. ---- [0]: Yes, I know that many standards processes on the web use Github, which is also a proprietary SaaS, but at least the majority of that process (issue tracker aside) is usable just as an endpoint.

rascul 5y ago
> It is just disappointing to see that apparently there isn't an Open collaboration platform that Mozilla thinks is good enough for this process, even a self-hosted one. Mozilla has been hosting an EtherPad instance for some time now, which may have worked in place of Google Docs for this. https://pad.mozilla.org https://pad.mozilla.org
dessant 5y ago
A large portion of Firefox development activity is hidden away in private documents on Google Docs. They are not concerned. https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/5410 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/5410
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Sadly that's not the only thing that will be closed if Mozilla keep focusing on the wrong things.
- danShumway 5y ago
  Blegh... it's disappointing to see this on the linked blogpost, but it's a lot more disappointing to see it for wikis directly relevant to a Github repo. Again, I know that Github is also SaaS, but there's a difference. That kind of stuff should be handled differently.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  And Jira.
iqanq 5y ago
>But this is a technical document about browser features, I'm a little frustrated that this is being coordinated over a proprietary SaaS service instead of over Git[0] with markdown or something. Then maybe the public SaaS services should be of a better quality so that Mozilla employees want to use them. >I think a lot more than that, I'm frustrated that the document is being made publicly available on that platform. When someone links to a web standard on Github, often it's because the standard is seeing active participation. For something that is being linked to a public view, I would have loved to see at least a PDF export or something. There is a PDF export for google docs which is available to all users. File > Download > PDF.
- danShumway 5y ago
  > Then maybe the public SaaS services should be of a better quality so that Mozilla employees want to use them. Maybe a company that has been throwing money into dozens of random privacy initiatives outside of the browser market (some good and some bad) would be a good fit for solving that problem? Dogfooding software is a really good strategy for UX design after all. > There is a PDF export for google docs which is available to all users. File > Download > PDF. That's exactly what I mean. Someone wrote this blog post, could they have hit the PDF export button and then linked to that PDF hosted on Mozilla's servers? That would have prevented the vandalism problem they ran into. The issue I have isn't that I can't export to PDF from Google Docs. The issue that I have is that I have to visit Google Docs and load a ton of proprietary Javascript just so I can hit a PDF export button. Google Docs has an API, Mozilla could have a script that's just auto-exporting a PDF and hosting it on a public endpoint on a regular interval.

rascul 5y ago

There seems to be access control on it now, as I get "Access denied" even while logged in.

Aachen 5y ago

So to read a proposal about ad tracking from Facebook, we need to use Google? There's some irony there I guess.