Previous public engagement is not a requirement to participate in a discussion. I don't need to have bootleg recordings of the Konrads to be a fan of the Thin White Duke, I needn't read Action...
Tons of those profiles are brand new, or were never previously active on GitHub [...] lemmings [...] lemming [...] lemmings
Previous public engagement is not a requirement to participate in a discussion. I don't need to have bootleg recordings of the Konrads to be a fan of the Thin White Duke, I needn't read Action Comics #1 to enjoy the tales of Chaz Donen, and everyone is entitled to speak on the changes to Audacity without needing to be previously active on a comparably niche website that's meant for a specific type of engagement. Such a take reeks of not-a-true-fan gatekeeping.
That said, most of the comments do seem to just be assholes wanting to bitch about it with their tired, copy/paste takes that they think are insightful and/or will magically change Muse's collective mind the same way that change.org petitions move governments (read: they don't). The privacy policy changes are reasonable and likely necessary for the greatly needed UI refresh, should have been more clear (hindsight 20/20) from the start, and simply be made opt-in for the 3.0.3 release when they become active with a note that they will become opt-out in 3.0.4.
I agree, but it is a little suspicious when so much of the discussion about a contentious topic is flooded with people who have never participated before. I was noticing this a lot when Near/Byuu...
Previous public engagement is not a requirement to participate in a discussion.
I agree, but it is a little suspicious when so much of the discussion about a contentious topic is flooded with people who have never participated before. I was noticing this a lot when Near/Byuu died last week and assholes were showing up in some of my communities to attack them for being trans and defend the actions of Kiwi Farm under the guise of "Free Speech". None of them had any prior history in these communities and were only showing their faces to stir up shit.
I agree that arguing about who's a true fan is silly, but it's because no fans have any power. That is, other than those granted in the license agreement, which for open source is pretty good....
I agree that arguing about who's a true fan is silly, but it's because no fans have any power. That is, other than those granted in the license agreement, which for open source is pretty good.
What you might have is influence. But as an ordinary anonymous commenter with a username that nobody recognizes, your influence is very limited, and people tend to severely over-estimate it when complaining. You might have more if you build up a track record of being a good person to listen to.
Maybe that looks like gatekeeping, but I don't see how it could be any other way. Why give rude strangers on the Internet any power over what you do?
It's always a comparably small group of people that actually do the work for any product. If the group of people that did the work outnumbered the people using it then it's a failure. Should the...
It's always a comparably small group of people that actually do the work for any product. If the group of people that did the work outnumbered the people using it then it's a failure.
Should the people commenting not be dicks? Absolutely.
However, giving a prerequisite of public engagement prior to a change that negatively impacts you in order for your statements to be taken into consideration is untenable.
I read the reference to them as lemmings as if they are people who are just following along with things they want to believe, but not actual fact. They have no interest in educating themselves to...
I read the reference to them as lemmings as if they are people who are just following along with things they want to believe, but not actual fact. They have no interest in educating themselves to develop an informed opinion, choosing instead to chase after their own emotions. I don't think the OP was saying that only true contributors can weigh in on it (i.e. the "don't be a lemming, find real reasons to be upset about it" bit). New accounts is one of the most common ways to find out how many of the furor is essentially manufactured outrage.
I think it's legal boilerplate simply to state that they will share information they have if they're complied by law enforcement. Even Tildes' Privacy Policy includes something similar :
I think it's legal boilerplate simply to state that they will share information they have if they're complied by law enforcement.
Even Tildes' Privacy Policy includes something similar :
Your information is not willingly shared with third parties, but we may disclose your information if we believe it is necessary to comply with a valid legal process or to prevent imminent harm (such as suicide).
You could literally do that with any kind of audio recording software though. I'm also pretty sure that Audacity isn't cloud-based and I don't see any other legitimate reason why any FOSS...
You could literally do that with any kind of audio recording software though. I'm also pretty sure that Audacity isn't cloud-based and I don't see any other legitimate reason why any FOSS developer would or even should be collecting data on what others have been doing with their apps?
Well, sure, those are valid considerations. I was just answering the question what nefarious things can you even do with a primitive digital audio workstation?
Well, sure, those are valid considerations. I was just answering the question what nefarious things can you even do with a primitive digital audio workstation?
They outlined their reasoning for data retrieval in the original acquisition, made sense (they want to know what tools people are actually using, in an attempt to streamline and make the UI far...
They outlined their reasoning for data retrieval in the original acquisition, made sense (they want to know what tools people are actually using, in an attempt to streamline and make the UI far better - which we can all agree is a bit of a monster to deal with).
The problem is this:
They list the personal data they collect as, “Data necessary for law enforcement, litigation and authorities’ requests (if any)” without any limitations. That’s a significant change to Audacity after over 20 years of development.
It's an interesting choice to include it, but I can understand it from a legal perspective as trying to cover all their bases. I don't know what sort of information would be 'necessary' for law enforcement or litigation, and that makes me a bit worried, but overall the rest of the new terms are understandable.
I mean, even Tildes has that type of statement saying that Deimos will share information to comply with legal processes. I guess Tildes might make more sense because of direct messages which could...
I mean, even Tildes has that type of statement saying that Deimos will share information to comply with legal processes. I guess Tildes might make more sense because of direct messages which could include writing contracts (even if it's a terrible place to do it).
It doesn't really matter if it makes sense in the present, the point is to cover your ass if police ever come knocking with a warrant. You never know what bizarre scenario could pop up. This is...
It doesn't really matter if it makes sense in the present, the point is to cover your ass if police ever come knocking with a warrant. You never know what bizarre scenario could pop up. This is why lawyers write these agreements rather than lay people.
I don't know where they got the idea of "without limitations" from in this capacity. While the Privacy Policy isn't written clearly enough to suggest that the Law Enforcement section was only able...
I don't know where they got the idea of "without limitations" from in this capacity. While the Privacy Policy isn't written clearly enough to suggest that the Law Enforcement section was only able to draw from the data in the App Analytics section, it seems like the "(if any)" bit got glossed over entirely in the article's interpretation in favour of their own addition of "without limitations", which isn't actually true. Based on this Privacy Policy's other sections, and the update posted on their GitHub, it doesn't seem like there will be any data for law enforcement to use.
They will receive the request, and they will process the request, but it doesn't seem like they expect to provide anything helpful to law enforcement.
I don't see how it could be seen otherwise. Spyware was, as the distinguishing difference from malware or adware, software that collected personal details. I feel most analytics thse days fit that...
I don't see how it could be seen otherwise. Spyware was, as the distinguishing difference from malware or adware, software that collected personal details.
I feel most analytics thse days fit that bill, but explicity collecting information to submit for legal requests seems odd at best and nefarious at worst.
I can. It is opt-in. It is only happening to users who explicitly agree to it. It is also not targeting sensitive data (at least not intentionally). If we applied your definition of spyware to all...
I can.
It is opt-in. It is only happening to users who explicitly agree to it. It is also not targeting sensitive data (at least not intentionally).
If we applied your definition of spyware to all software then Firefox would qualify. At that point I would argue that the term has become useless.
I thought spyware also had to do that without your knowledge, and collect sensitive personal data that it was never authorized to like passwords or credit card information. If it's just any...
I thought spyware also had to do that without your knowledge, and collect sensitive personal data that it was never authorized to like passwords or credit card information. If it's just any software that openly collects information like IP addresses and basic system info, then it's just a scary sounding term that doesn't really mean anything. Almost every commercial piece of software, including video games, would be spyware.
Legal request info is boilerplate now on pretty much all commercial software. There are many jurisdictions that require it even if there's no real info to use (which seems to be the case here).
Note, though, that ocenaudio does not appear to be FLOSS. In contrast, see https://alternativeto.net/software/audacity/?license=opensource I haven't really found anything that could be a worthy...
Note, though, that ocenaudio does not appear to be FLOSS.
I haven't really found anything that could be a worthy FLOSS alternative to Audacity. I tried KWave recently, but was dismayed to find that it explicitly doesn't support 48khz. Gnome Wave Cleaner looks like it isn't getting updated any more, and is also hosted on Sourceforge (a yellow flag).
I use ardour regularly, but it feels like overkill when I just want to open a single file and look at the waves of a file and click around to play fragments.
I’ve mentioned this previously, but if it isn’t easy to use (or is overly complicated) for normies (i.e., non-comp people like myself), the software in question will remain niche and only used by...
I’ve mentioned this previously, but if it isn’t easy to use (or is overly complicated) for normies (i.e., non-comp people like myself), the software in question will remain niche and only used by die-hard FLOSSers.
I think Ardour is in a bit of different space altogether. It's more a logic pro, or adobe auditions competitor (although, I would argue that it's UI is much worse than logic pro) - it's definitely...
I think Ardour is in a bit of different space altogether. It's more a logic pro, or adobe auditions competitor (although, I would argue that it's UI is much worse than logic pro) - it's definitely aimed squarely at actual audio professionals, with that set of UI considerations.
Ardour will never be an easily accessible, wide spread audio editing tool - not just because it's FLOSS with no paid UI designers, but also because it needs to tradeoff ease of use for power that its target audience needs.
I kind of get what you're saying, but you also pointed out that it's UI is much worse than one of it's commercial competitors which means there is clearly room for improvement without sacrificing...
I kind of get what you're saying, but you also pointed out that it's UI is much worse than one of it's commercial competitors which means there is clearly room for improvement without sacrificing the utility that its users rely on.
Blender used to be in this situation, until game developers started flooding the project with cash seeing it as an alternative to commercial products that could be more easily customized to work well with their engines.
Honest question: can't the privacy-minded user easily block Audacity using something like the GUFW firewall? Even the built-in Windows Firewall is pretty good, I used it a lot back in the day when...
Honest question: can't the privacy-minded user easily block Audacity using something like the GUFW firewall? Even the built-in Windows Firewall is pretty good, I used it a lot back in the day when I had a bunch of "alternatively licensed" software installed.
I guess it's the same company that runs MuseScore and Ultimate Guitar, which I just learned a couple days ago, that bought Audacity. I'd say Ardour would be the way to go until an Audacity fork is...
I guess it's the same company that runs MuseScore and Ultimate Guitar, which I just learned a couple days ago, that bought Audacity.
I'd say Ardour would be the way to go until an Audacity fork is established, but you'll need to pay something to get Windows binaries. I'd love to see a way to distribute binaries for Windows users for free that wouldn't undercut the Ardour company trying to make money fairly off of their software.
I've never actually liked working in Audacity, oddly enough, because I can never get its effects right. I use proprietary daws that, unfortunately, work better, but even Ardour provides much of the functionality with real-time previews, even if you have to pay.
I use ardour and really like it, but, as I mentioned in another comment, I still want to have at hand a more quick & dirty audio editing tool than ardour, for those times when I just want to fire...
I use ardour and really like it, but, as I mentioned in another comment, I still want to have at hand a more quick & dirty audio editing tool than ardour, for those times when I just want to fire up a tool quickly, do a small little task on a single audio file, and exit. Audacity fit the bill nicely, so I'm on the lookout for an equivalent.
Previous public engagement is not a requirement to participate in a discussion. I don't need to have bootleg recordings of the Konrads to be a fan of the Thin White Duke, I needn't read Action Comics #1 to enjoy the tales of Chaz Donen, and everyone is entitled to speak on the changes to Audacity without needing to be previously active on a comparably niche website that's meant for a specific type of engagement. Such a take reeks of not-a-true-fan gatekeeping.
That said, most of the comments do seem to just be assholes wanting to bitch about it with their tired, copy/paste takes that they think are insightful and/or will magically change Muse's collective mind the same way that change.org petitions move governments (read: they don't). The privacy policy changes are reasonable and likely necessary for the greatly needed UI refresh, should have been more clear (hindsight 20/20) from the start, and simply be made opt-in for the 3.0.3 release when they become active with a note that they will become opt-out in 3.0.4.
I agree, but it is a little suspicious when so much of the discussion about a contentious topic is flooded with people who have never participated before. I was noticing this a lot when Near/Byuu died last week and assholes were showing up in some of my communities to attack them for being trans and defend the actions of Kiwi Farm under the guise of "Free Speech". None of them had any prior history in these communities and were only showing their faces to stir up shit.
I agree that arguing about who's a true fan is silly, but it's because no fans have any power. That is, other than those granted in the license agreement, which for open source is pretty good.
What you might have is influence. But as an ordinary anonymous commenter with a username that nobody recognizes, your influence is very limited, and people tend to severely over-estimate it when complaining. You might have more if you build up a track record of being a good person to listen to.
Maybe that looks like gatekeeping, but I don't see how it could be any other way. Why give rude strangers on the Internet any power over what you do?
It's always a comparably small group of people that actually do the work for any product. If the group of people that did the work outnumbered the people using it then it's a failure.
Should the people commenting not be dicks? Absolutely.
However, giving a prerequisite of public engagement prior to a change that negatively impacts you in order for your statements to be taken into consideration is untenable.
So they aren't allowed a say in the matter?
I read the reference to them as lemmings as if they are people who are just following along with things they want to believe, but not actual fact. They have no interest in educating themselves to develop an informed opinion, choosing instead to chase after their own emotions. I don't think the OP was saying that only true contributors can weigh in on it (i.e. the "don't be a lemming, find real reasons to be upset about it" bit). New accounts is one of the most common ways to find out how many of the furor is essentially manufactured outrage.
Data necessary for law enforcement? What nefarious things can you even do with a primitive digital audio workstation?
I think it's legal boilerplate simply to state that they will share information they have if they're complied by law enforcement.
Even Tildes' Privacy Policy includes something similar :
I suppose you could use it to edit a white supremacist podcast advocating for violence against non-whites? That would be pretty nefarious.
You could literally do that with any kind of audio recording software though. I'm also pretty sure that Audacity isn't cloud-based and I don't see any other legitimate reason why any FOSS developer would or even should be collecting data on what others have been doing with their apps?
Well, sure, those are valid considerations. I was just answering the question what nefarious things can you even do with a primitive digital audio workstation?
They outlined their reasoning for data retrieval in the original acquisition, made sense (they want to know what tools people are actually using, in an attempt to streamline and make the UI far better - which we can all agree is a bit of a monster to deal with).
The problem is this:
It's an interesting choice to include it, but I can understand it from a legal perspective as trying to cover all their bases. I don't know what sort of information would be 'necessary' for law enforcement or litigation, and that makes me a bit worried, but overall the rest of the new terms are understandable.
I mean, even Tildes has that type of statement saying that Deimos will share information to comply with legal processes. I guess Tildes might make more sense because of direct messages which could include writing contracts (even if it's a terrible place to do it).
It doesn't really matter if it makes sense in the present, the point is to cover your ass if police ever come knocking with a warrant. You never know what bizarre scenario could pop up. This is why lawyers write these agreements rather than lay people.
I don't know where they got the idea of "without limitations" from in this capacity. While the Privacy Policy isn't written clearly enough to suggest that the Law Enforcement section was only able to draw from the data in the App Analytics section, it seems like the "(if any)" bit got glossed over entirely in the article's interpretation in favour of their own addition of "without limitations", which isn't actually true. Based on this Privacy Policy's other sections, and the update posted on their GitHub, it doesn't seem like there will be any data for law enforcement to use.
They will receive the request, and they will process the request, but it doesn't seem like they expect to provide anything helpful to law enforcement.
Muse Group posted an update on their Github earlier today.
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/1225
I don't see how it could be seen otherwise. Spyware was, as the distinguishing difference from malware or adware, software that collected personal details.
I feel most analytics thse days fit that bill, but explicity collecting information to submit for legal requests seems odd at best and nefarious at worst.
I can.
It is opt-in. It is only happening to users who explicitly agree to it. It is also not targeting sensitive data (at least not intentionally).
If we applied your definition of spyware to all software then Firefox would qualify. At that point I would argue that the term has become useless.
I thought spyware also had to do that without your knowledge, and collect sensitive personal data that it was never authorized to like passwords or credit card information. If it's just any software that openly collects information like IP addresses and basic system info, then it's just a scary sounding term that doesn't really mean anything. Almost every commercial piece of software, including video games, would be spyware.
Legal request info is boilerplate now on pretty much all commercial software. There are many jurisdictions that require it even if there's no real info to use (which seems to be the case here).
Note, though, that ocenaudio does not appear to be FLOSS.
In contrast, see https://alternativeto.net/software/audacity/?license=opensource
I haven't really found anything that could be a worthy FLOSS alternative to Audacity. I tried KWave recently, but was dismayed to find that it explicitly doesn't support 48khz. Gnome Wave Cleaner looks like it isn't getting updated any more, and is also hosted on Sourceforge (a yellow flag).
I use ardour regularly, but it feels like overkill when I just want to open a single file and look at the waves of a file and click around to play fragments.
I’ve mentioned this previously, but if it isn’t easy to use (or is overly complicated) for normies (i.e., non-comp people like myself), the software in question will remain niche and only used by die-hard FLOSSers.
I think Ardour is in a bit of different space altogether. It's more a logic pro, or adobe auditions competitor (although, I would argue that it's UI is much worse than logic pro) - it's definitely aimed squarely at actual audio professionals, with that set of UI considerations.
Ardour will never be an easily accessible, wide spread audio editing tool - not just because it's FLOSS with no paid UI designers, but also because it needs to tradeoff ease of use for power that its target audience needs.
I kind of get what you're saying, but you also pointed out that it's UI is much worse than one of it's commercial competitors which means there is clearly room for improvement without sacrificing the utility that its users rely on.
Blender used to be in this situation, until game developers started flooding the project with cash seeing it as an alternative to commercial products that could be more easily customized to work well with their engines.
Honest question: can't the privacy-minded user easily block Audacity using something like the GUFW firewall? Even the built-in Windows Firewall is pretty good, I used it a lot back in the day when I had a bunch of "alternatively licensed" software installed.
Yes, but it doesn’t sound like you need to. If you don’t turn update checks on and don’t send error reports, nothing is sent.
I guess it's the same company that runs MuseScore and Ultimate Guitar, which I just learned a couple days ago, that bought Audacity.
I'd say Ardour would be the way to go until an Audacity fork is established, but you'll need to pay something to get Windows binaries. I'd love to see a way to distribute binaries for Windows users for free that wouldn't undercut the Ardour company trying to make money fairly off of their software.
I've never actually liked working in Audacity, oddly enough, because I can never get its effects right. I use proprietary daws that, unfortunately, work better, but even Ardour provides much of the functionality with real-time previews, even if you have to pay.
I use ardour and really like it, but, as I mentioned in another comment, I still want to have at hand a more quick & dirty audio editing tool than ardour, for those times when I just want to fire up a tool quickly, do a small little task on a single audio file, and exit. Audacity fit the bill nicely, so I'm on the lookout for an equivalent.
You're right, and I'll really support any fork that gets traction.