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and then they simultaneously determined "yeah, we might eat your data. Lets not warn anyone about that AT ALL, lets keep the feature activated and let them user

and then they simultaneously determined "yeah, we might eat your data. Lets not warn anyone about that AT ALL, lets keep the feature activated and let them users lose their data". This behavior ought to be criminal.

yifanl 1y ago
It's not criminal, but you're entitled to a full refund of Thunderbird in the event it happens.
- saurik 1y ago
  Just because something is free certainly does not make it ethical, and it doesn't even mean it should be legal.
  - yifanl 1y ago
    No, but they're rather limited in ways to reimburse you or offer "justice". Putting the Thunderbird team in jail doesn't help you out. Hell, what if the offending commit was 2 decades ago by someone who's cut off all contact regarding code since?
    - redeeman 1y ago
      nobody should fault the person who have coded the bug, unless someone can prove it was done on purpose. What I am suggesting is that the project as a whole has the responsibility to not just sit on data losing bugs for 17 years without warning users. the fact that they choose not to, makes me perfectly OK with them being held criminally liable.
- CamperBob2 1y ago
  This line of reasoning will eventually cause it to be treated as criminal, or at least as a civil tort. Then we will all be worse off.
- redeeman 1y ago
  an option I will be making use of now. And I know its not criminal, im saying it SHOULD be criminal not to warn people about this. its more than a decade
- account42 1y ago
  Neither lack of payment nor the liability disclaimers in the license absolve the developers of liability for malicious actions or gross negligence.
Forgeties79 1y ago
Make no mistake - I am not absolving them of leaving this issue unaddressed lol just saying if it was easy they’d likely have handled it. It’s probably difficult or they just don’t know, so they keep putting it off and decided that not enough users are affected for real consequences (which is wrong to do)
- redeeman 1y ago
  i fully understand it might be very hard to fix, but to know about it for that long, and not warn people or disable the functionality is unforgivable
  - Forgeties79 1y ago
    Totally agree
godelski 1y ago
> Lets not warn anyone about that AT ALL, lets keep the feature activated and let them users lose their data How did you conclude this? IDK why the assumption is that safety measures haven't been created. You wouldn't mark the bug as resolved if you put in safety features, right? You *ONLY MARK AS RESOLVED* after reproducing the bug and *VERIFYING* that it won't happen again. Right? Dear god I hope this is what you do, because otherwise you are prematurely closing bugs.
- redeeman 1y ago
  are you being for real? did you see anything as such in the bug listing? but even IF they did put safeguards in place, the fact that this is SEVENTEEN YEARS, no warning, functionality still enabled without ANY WARNING losing people data. unforgivable. How can you possibly justify this behavior? I understand they dont owe the world any software, fine, but dont knowingly publish stuff that KILLS PEOPLES DATA without atleast a warning
  - godelski 1y ago
    > are you being for real? Yes > did you see anything as such in the bug listing? Yes > but even IF they did put safeguards in place, the fact that this is SEVENTEEN YEARS, no warning, functionality still enabled without ANY WARNING losing people data. unforgivable. The software has change a ton in 17 years. Right? We can agree on this? (I mean it underwent a major revision in 2018, getting a lot of the codebase rewritten (like Firefox Quantum). So let's consider a hypothetical situation. Suppose the problem was resolved in the almost 2 decades of rewriting BUT you still do not know what caused the bug in the first place and, consequently, can't reproduce it. Do you mark the bug as resolved? Now let's not sit in the hypothetical setting and act as developers. Some safeguards have been put in place (you can verify by looking at referenced issues). You've solved similar, but are unable to determine if these are the same problems or different problems (again, see referenced or use the search). Do you mark the bug as resolved? Your sibling commenter implied they would. Personally, I wouldn't. Marking as resolved is a promise to the user that it is fixed. But I can't make such a promise. I can't make any strong statement until I can reproduce. So yeah, it seems appropriate to me that it is marked as "unresolved" with steps "needs reproduction." That is an entirely appropriate status to me. You try as hard as you can and you implement as many safety features as you can, but you don't mark as resolved until you can verify. Unfortunately, this means issues go stale. Hell, there'll even be some noise like if a hacker or even just your dog deleted everything. We wouldn't want to assume the user is dumb and lull ourselves into a false sense of security, right? But you can only do so much. *YOU CANNOT CLOSE A BUG REPORT IF YOU CANNOT VERIFY THE BUG*. That's the policy they are using. You may use a different policy, but that's the one they are using.

yifanl 1y ago

It's not criminal, but you're entitled to a full refund of Thunderbird in the event it happens.

saurik 1y ago
Just because something is free certainly does not make it ethical, and it doesn't even mean it should be legal.
- yifanl 1y ago
  No, but they're rather limited in ways to reimburse you or offer "justice". Putting the Thunderbird team in jail doesn't help you out. Hell, what if the offending commit was 2 decades ago by someone who's cut off all contact regarding code since?
  - redeeman 1y ago
    nobody should fault the person who have coded the bug, unless someone can prove it was done on purpose. What I am suggesting is that the project as a whole has the responsibility to not just sit on data losing bugs for 17 years without warning users. the fact that they choose not to, makes me perfectly OK with them being held criminally liable.
CamperBob2 1y ago
This line of reasoning will eventually cause it to be treated as criminal, or at least as a civil tort. Then we will all be worse off.
redeeman 1y ago
an option I will be making use of now. And I know its not criminal, im saying it SHOULD be criminal not to warn people about this. its more than a decade
account42 1y ago
Neither lack of payment nor the liability disclaimers in the license absolve the developers of liability for malicious actions or gross negligence.

Forgeties79 1y ago

Make no mistake - I am not absolving them of leaving this issue unaddressed lol just saying if it was easy they’d likely have handled it. It’s probably difficult or they just don’t know, so they keep putting it off and decided that not enough users are affected for real consequences (which is wrong to do)

redeeman 1y ago
i fully understand it might be very hard to fix, but to know about it for that long, and not warn people or disable the functionality is unforgivable
- Forgeties79 1y ago
  Totally agree

godelski 1y ago

> Lets not warn anyone about that AT ALL, lets keep the feature activated and let them users lose their data How did you conclude this? IDK why the assumption is that safety measures haven't been created. You wouldn't mark the bug as resolved if you put in safety features, right? You *ONLY MARK AS RESOLVED* after reproducing the bug and *VERIFYING* that it won't happen again. Right? Dear god I hope this is what you do, because otherwise you are prematurely closing bugs.

redeeman 1y ago
are you being for real? did you see anything as such in the bug listing? but even IF they did put safeguards in place, the fact that this is SEVENTEEN YEARS, no warning, functionality still enabled without ANY WARNING losing people data. unforgivable. How can you possibly justify this behavior? I understand they dont owe the world any software, fine, but dont knowingly publish stuff that KILLS PEOPLES DATA without atleast a warning
- godelski 1y ago
  > are you being for real? Yes > did you see anything as such in the bug listing? Yes > but even IF they did put safeguards in place, the fact that this is SEVENTEEN YEARS, no warning, functionality still enabled without ANY WARNING losing people data. unforgivable. The software has change a ton in 17 years. Right? We can agree on this? (I mean it underwent a major revision in 2018, getting a lot of the codebase rewritten (like Firefox Quantum). So let's consider a hypothetical situation. Suppose the problem was resolved in the almost 2 decades of rewriting BUT you still do not know what caused the bug in the first place and, consequently, can't reproduce it. Do you mark the bug as resolved? Now let's not sit in the hypothetical setting and act as developers. Some safeguards have been put in place (you can verify by looking at referenced issues). You've solved similar, but are unable to determine if these are the same problems or different problems (again, see referenced or use the search). Do you mark the bug as resolved? Your sibling commenter implied they would. Personally, I wouldn't. Marking as resolved is a promise to the user that it is fixed. But I can't make such a promise. I can't make any strong statement until I can reproduce. So yeah, it seems appropriate to me that it is marked as "unresolved" with steps "needs reproduction." That is an entirely appropriate status to me. You try as hard as you can and you implement as many safety features as you can, but you don't mark as resolved until you can verify. Unfortunately, this means issues go stale. Hell, there'll even be some noise like if a hacker or even just your dog deleted everything. We wouldn't want to assume the user is dumb and lull ourselves into a false sense of security, right? But you can only do so much. *YOU CANNOT CLOSE A BUG REPORT IF YOU CANNOT VERIFY THE BUG*. That's the policy they are using. You may use a different policy, but that's the one they are using.