Hacker News Reader

Comment by manquer | Hacker News Reader

You could make it optional ?

Mozilla does it . Nobody is forking Firefox over just that, I don't think everyone is against it.

If it opt out and part of the install process and uses know what kind of data will be used it should be fine.

Audacity seems a exception here. They are broadly following this kind of rules , however there is blowback which other projects don't seem to be getting. Perhaps there are underlying issues in the community ?

View on HN

It even seems Audacity is asking for permission based on this screenshot: https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835

That is the opt out for crash reporting, the version checking doesn't show a dialog before it phones home. Version checking is configurable in the settings, but it will run once I guess.

As far as I can tell (and correct me if I'm wrong) while other open-source projects might be able to get away with opt-in telemetry, Muse Group has simultaneously (a) raised the ire of other open-source developers with the bungled response to e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27740550; (b) had technically correct but really optically horrid legal language about potential uses of the Audacity data, which implied a blanket granting of any metadata to any buyer of the company to use as they see fit, even if GDPR wouldn't let them do that; (c) didn't make it clear from the get-go that telemetry would be opt-in, nor make any sort of foundational commitment that it would only ever be opt-in; and (d) hasn't yet reacted quickly to describe their ownership structure in the interest of transparency.

It's a perfect storm of mistrust and crisis mismanagement. And the sad thing is that there are talented folks like Tantacrul, Head of Design at Muse Group, who could really benefit the community with opt-in telemetry guiding their product decisions, who have now been thrust into a crisis management role by this botched rollout, and are unprepared to give the transparency now required. Did nobody else at the company learn from WhatsApp's debacle on this?

It's especially sad because while few would shed a tear for WhatsApp's missteps, Muse Group's holdings in MuseScore and Audacity are literally the lifeblood of hobbyist and student music creators. Mistrust in that software can easily lead to "you know what, I heard bad things about Muse stuff, I won't pick it up" and that would rob the world of so, so much creativity. Muse Group, rein in your lawyers, swallow your pride, and act like the stewards of the future of music that you are.

Tantacrul is clearly OK with what the parent company is doing.

Where did you get that information? He has a post on his twitter clearly stating that it's not his department.

https://drewdevault.com/2020/05/05/We-are-complicit-in-our-e...

I think there's a massive gulf between an employer's behavior and an employer's transparency; lack of transparency is not in itself a reason to condemn a person for working at a place. There's no actual evidence that Muse Group is actually installing this telemetry in bad faith, nor any actual evidence that they wouldn't be willing to modify the details so it's acceptable. They seem to be absolutely horrible communicators, but ones with a product that does good in the world (and yes, I think that their efforts to thread the needle between the litigious whims of the music industry and the effort to democratize access to sheet music and the tooling around it are societally necessary). So I think it's appropriate to be critical of how they handled the situation but still support the idea that the people working there can be doing so in good faith.

That's true, if the employee truly didn't know what their employer was doing.

At this point, however, the age restriction should have given it away. If it's not allowed for children, it's because of COPPA. And if you're trying to avoid COPPA, you're doing something nefarious. The employee should know that by now.

Quite insightful thanks.

WhatsApp probably a not right comparison ? It is not like there was ever going to be opt out in WhatsApp even, and Facebook's reputation and history of abuses is at different league than pretty much anyone else.

> Mozilla does it . Nobody is forking Firefox over just that

Mozilla is a non-profit whose mission is promoting end-user control on the Internet, and they have a long track record. People trust Mozilla.

The owners of Audacity haven't earned that trust.

Mozilla is a for profit that runs projects out of a nonprofit.

[roca corrects the ordering, but there is still a for profit in there]

It's actually the other way around. The nonprofit owns the for-profit.

My bad, still a for profit in there so I wouldn't believe they are immune from a profit temptation.

Even at a pure non-profit there is a significant temptation for the staff to grant themselves benefits at the expense of the mission.

No more so than at a plain non-profit - the profits can't be paid out to shareholders, since the non-profit is the shareholder.

Of course, people can still pay themselves fat checks, but that's possible at a regular non-profit too.

The profit _can be_ (and is) paid to the shareholders, it's just that the lone shareholder is a non-profit.

Yeah sorry, sloppy wording, but the point is the same.

That doesn't impact my point, that Mozilla has a long track record and is trusted, and the owners of Audacity don't and are not.

Lots of people do complain about Firefox telemetry.

LOL. Both Firefox Desktop and Mobile have forks that disable telemetry, the auto updater and even the periodic check for tracker and malware blocklist updates.

On Windows Firefox installs telemetry service that is always active and comes back if disabled.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com