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This article smacks of paternalism. Part of the fun of free software is that it might do terrible things. Debian is not a distro that promises you a walled gar

This article smacks of paternalism. Part of the fun of free software is that it might do terrible things. Debian is not a distro that promises you a walled garden run by an iron-fisted tyrant who beats programmers into submission so they'll respect your privacy Nothing in Debian will install StarDict invisibly. Only you install StarDict. Only you run StarDict. Wayland is not a panacea. If you want StarDict to translate everything you highlight/clip, you will tell Wayland to let StarDict do that. If Wayland can't do that, it's bad, paternalistic software. There is Android and iOS for idiots who want to be bossed around by their device and have no real freedom. The real problem are these HTTP lookups by default, which is the fault of the packager, and Debian as a whole for not prodding them into fixing it. This bug was already reported and fixed as CVE-2009-2260. Then StarDict was kicked out of Debian, and when it came back, so did this bug. The most recent re-reporting of this bug (https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=806960 https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=806960 raised in 2015) was fixed a few days ago by removing the dict.cn plugin, 2 days after Vincent Lefevre raised this issue on oss-security-list. He also raised CVE-2025-55014 for another dictionary plugin that sends HTTP requests, which has also been fixed by removing that plugin. Both plugins should be removed from Trixie as of today, and more appropriately, all the "network dictionaries" are now in their own package (stardict-plugin-network-dictionary), not installed by default (stardict-plugin suggests rather than recommends it): Changelog: https://salsa.debian.org/debian/stardict/-/blob/debian/trixie/debian/changelog https://salsa.debian.org/debian/stardict/-/blob/debian/trixi... stardict (3.0.7+git20220909+dfsg-8) unstable; urgency=medium * remove stardict_youdaodict.so plugin from stardict-plugin package, Closes: #1110370 * split network-dictionary plugin to a new binary package stardict-plugin-network-dictionary * add d/NEWS.Debian -- xiao sheng wen <atzlinux@sina.com> Mon, 11 Aug 2025 10:46:11 +0800 stardict (3.0.7+git20220909+dfsg-7) unstable; urgency=medium * d/stardict-plugin.install:not install stardict_dictdotcn.so, Closes: #806960 * d/rules:Added --disable-dictdotcn option, dictdotcn is not provid server now -- xiao sheng wen <atzlinux@sina.com> Wed, 06 Aug 2025 14:09:39 +0800 Control: https://salsa.debian.org/debian/stardict/-/blob/debian/trixie/debian/control https://salsa.debian.org/debian/stardict/-/blob/debian/trixi... Package: stardict-plugin-network-dictionary Description: [...] *Warning* * The query word will send through the network use plain-text in this plugin! * Please do *NOT* selects any confidential data to query dictionary * When enable "Scan" function on stardict, the selected text will sended on the net at once. Package: stardict-plugin Suggests: [...] stardict-plugin-network-dictionary (= ${binary:Version}),

anonymars 1y ago
> Part of the fun of free software is that it might do terrible things Yeah you lost me here
- amiga386 1y ago
  Freedom is the freedom to say rm -rf /* and accept the consequences. If you want to give someone else control over what you can and can't do with your machine, iOS is over there -->
  - anonymars 1y ago
    False dichotomy. Why should I expect that merely installing a dictionary will silently opt me in to sending everything in my clipboard to some third party? You don't need some strawman tyrant to want it to require a user opt-in if that's what you really want to do
    - amiga386 1y ago
      You can expect that any software might do anything, either because of a bug or because it's intentional, and you won't know until you see it happen. It's why the major FOSS licenses say things like THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. You can want software to be well behaved, and in most cases it is. But if you want some level of assurance that the software is behaved as you'd like it, some requirement in law that the software is not allowed to exist unless it meets your requirements, or the platform it runs on is neutered so it literally can't do the thing you don't want it to do -- that's where the tyrant comes in.
      - anonymars 1y ago
        Again, false dichotomy. If Debian's maintainers don't put things in the package manager with dodgy behavior, that's not a walled garden like iOS Not having to check your cereal for razor blades is also a freedom

anonymars 1y ago

> Part of the fun of free software is that it might do terrible things Yeah you lost me here

amiga386 1y ago
Freedom is the freedom to say rm -rf /* and accept the consequences. If you want to give someone else control over what you can and can't do with your machine, iOS is over there -->
- anonymars 1y ago
  False dichotomy. Why should I expect that merely installing a dictionary will silently opt me in to sending everything in my clipboard to some third party? You don't need some strawman tyrant to want it to require a user opt-in if that's what you really want to do
  - amiga386 1y ago
    You can expect that any software might do anything, either because of a bug or because it's intentional, and you won't know until you see it happen. It's why the major FOSS licenses say things like THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. You can want software to be well behaved, and in most cases it is. But if you want some level of assurance that the software is behaved as you'd like it, some requirement in law that the software is not allowed to exist unless it meets your requirements, or the platform it runs on is neutered so it literally can't do the thing you don't want it to do -- that's where the tyrant comes in.
    - anonymars 1y ago
      Again, false dichotomy. If Debian's maintainers don't put things in the package manager with dodgy behavior, that's not a walled garden like iOS Not having to check your cereal for razor blades is also a freedom