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This kind of thing is vindicating for those of us who stayed away from snaps precisely because the server side is proprietary and the snap tooling only supports

This kind of thing is vindicating for those of us who stayed away from snaps precisely because the server side is proprietary and the snap tooling only supports Canonical's centralized store. A centralized service being the only option for software distribution is too large of a failure point, no matter who's running it.

jeroenhd 4y ago
The application went down because of a DMCA request. The same would've happened with APT repositories and other distribution systems in that the "official" source would disappear. You could've installed it from an alternative source were that to happen to a simple repository but you still can now. I have plenty of gripes with Snap but this time the Signal team is to blame.
- cyberphobe 4y ago
  Signal never gave canonical permission to distribute a binary called Signal. Canonical just went ahead and did it anyway. How is this Signal’s fault?
  - monocasa 4y ago
    DMCA isn't a mechanism for trademark disputes.
    - cyberphobe 4y ago
      Then complain about that. Honestly given the existing set of miscommunications about what happened, I’m not sure it is an actual DMCA request
  - loloquwowndueo 4y ago
    Canonical distributes the snap in the sense of “owns the store and infrastructure” but the publisher is not canonical - it’s snapcrafters which is a group of community volunteers.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    It's Signal's fault for getting lawyers involved before communicating with the people that put the alternative up. If it's that much of a problem, asking nicely would probably have worked. They could even set up a mechanism to transfer users to the official distribution if they wanted to put in the effort to help their users. As a side note, "Signal" is a generic English word. The logo is a generic speech bubble. Copyright and trademark law should not be piecing up language and handing it out to tech companies that decided that all app names should be no longer than two syllables. I'm sure legally speaking there's a trademark case to be made here, but ethically speaking I think it's wrong.
    - cyberphobe 4y ago
      Signal isn’t saying no one can use the word signal. The problem arises when you use all of their branding together in such a way that could plausibly fool someone into thinking it’s their software, which very much appears to have happened here (see this entire thread full of people who installed this trademark violating build thinking it was legit)
      - jdiff 4y ago
        Signal is not saying this, as evidenced by the cofounder saying that this is all a misunderstanding and that they're working to undo what's been done.
        cyberphobe 4y ago
        yeah I noticed that. Quite a reversal from their previous position, which was incredibly clear. I wonder if they'll extend this policy to other groups that have previously been shut down for doing the same thing (F-Droid being the obvious one here).
- ryukafalz 4y ago
  Were that to happen to an official apt repository, you could install from an alternative apt repository. In this case, you can't install from an alternative snap repository. Sure, you can go build a binary yourself and keep it up to date yourself, but that's not really a user-friendly solution in the long term. Your saving grace here is that Ubuntu as a Debian derivative still supports apt repos, but if snaps were to really gain traction that might not always be the case. A desktop version of Ubuntu Core (akin to Fedora Silverblue for flatpak) would not have this luxury.

jeroenhd 4y ago

The application went down because of a DMCA request. The same would've happened with APT repositories and other distribution systems in that the "official" source would disappear. You could've installed it from an alternative source were that to happen to a simple repository but you still can now. I have plenty of gripes with Snap but this time the Signal team is to blame.

cyberphobe 4y ago
Signal never gave canonical permission to distribute a binary called Signal. Canonical just went ahead and did it anyway. How is this Signal’s fault?
- monocasa 4y ago
  DMCA isn't a mechanism for trademark disputes.
  - cyberphobe 4y ago
    Then complain about that. Honestly given the existing set of miscommunications about what happened, I’m not sure it is an actual DMCA request
- loloquwowndueo 4y ago
  Canonical distributes the snap in the sense of “owns the store and infrastructure” but the publisher is not canonical - it’s snapcrafters which is a group of community volunteers.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  It's Signal's fault for getting lawyers involved before communicating with the people that put the alternative up. If it's that much of a problem, asking nicely would probably have worked. They could even set up a mechanism to transfer users to the official distribution if they wanted to put in the effort to help their users. As a side note, "Signal" is a generic English word. The logo is a generic speech bubble. Copyright and trademark law should not be piecing up language and handing it out to tech companies that decided that all app names should be no longer than two syllables. I'm sure legally speaking there's a trademark case to be made here, but ethically speaking I think it's wrong.
  - cyberphobe 4y ago
    Signal isn’t saying no one can use the word signal. The problem arises when you use all of their branding together in such a way that could plausibly fool someone into thinking it’s their software, which very much appears to have happened here (see this entire thread full of people who installed this trademark violating build thinking it was legit)
    - jdiff 4y ago
      Signal is not saying this, as evidenced by the cofounder saying that this is all a misunderstanding and that they're working to undo what's been done.
      - cyberphobe 4y ago
        yeah I noticed that. Quite a reversal from their previous position, which was incredibly clear. I wonder if they'll extend this policy to other groups that have previously been shut down for doing the same thing (F-Droid being the obvious one here).
ryukafalz 4y ago
Were that to happen to an official apt repository, you could install from an alternative apt repository. In this case, you can't install from an alternative snap repository. Sure, you can go build a binary yourself and keep it up to date yourself, but that's not really a user-friendly solution in the long term. Your saving grace here is that Ubuntu as a Debian derivative still supports apt repos, but if snaps were to really gain traction that might not always be the case. A desktop version of Ubuntu Core (akin to Fedora Silverblue for flatpak) would not have this luxury.