Warnings, demands and disclaimers. My balance of 2021 part 8

Warnings lawsuits and waivers

We arrive at July with this balance of the year 2021 and we find ourselves with an early warning of a topic that would hit hard early this year. Lack of support for free software developers. A lawsuit against one of the big technology companies is also added.

Warnings, demands and disclaimers

Baldur's Warning

Baldur Bejarnaso is a web developer and contributor to various open source projects. In the middle of last year he wrote an article complaining about the behavior of users using web development tools:

People don't appreciate how much web development involves extracting value from OSS, both individually and corporately. Almost everything we do in web development exists as a thin layer on top of open source software. Servers, building tools, databases, authentication, client-side JavaScript code execution, web browser - we are all building on a vast ocean of open source software work without returning even a fraction of the value obtained.

The Icelandic developer maintains that users demand the attention they would deserve if they were paying users. It also hits the big tech companies:

Open source software is a strategic lever for large technology companies. They finance when it helps their core business and stop when it doesn't. Cloud hosting has slowly been ushering in an era of extraction, where tech companies are specifically targeting open source server-side projects that they can leverage with little investment. Large sections of server-side software are under-funded.

The data that Audacity shares

In several articles we talk about the decision of the new owners of Audacity, the open source tool for editing audio files, to include telemetry. Before the protest of the users, the developers clarified that data is shared:

  • Name and version of the operating system.
  • IP adress.
  • Geographical location (Calculated from the IP address.
  • Relevant hardware data.
  • Non-fatal error warning message.
  • Crash report.

They also indicated that:

  1. Telemetry was strictly optional and was disabled by default.
  2. Telemetry only works on builds made by GitHub CI from official repositoryl (telemetry URLs are only defined there).
  3. For those who want to compile Audacity from source code, a CMake option will be provided to enable the telemetry code. This option is will deactivate of default.

Whitehurst's resignation

IBM's purchase of RedHat gave rise to all sorts of conspiracy theories. So far the doomsday predictions have not been fulfilled, unless we consider the change of direction of CentOS as part of a campaign to eliminate free versions. However, the resignation of Jim Whitehurst, who from RedHat led the sale process to IBM, once again unleashed rumors that the 3-letter company, despite its promise, will end up absorbing its subsidiary..

After the purchase, Whitehurst took over as president of IBM while continuing to rule the destinies of RedHat. He lasted in his new position for only fourteen months.

Google plays the monkey… polio

36 jurisdictions in the United States, including its capital and 36 states, filed a lawsuit against Google for monopolistic practices with its Android application store. ANDThe purpose of the lawsuit was to avoid a commission of 30% of sales for products marketed on Google Play

According to the demand, Google prevented any competing app store from being able to exceed more than 5% of the market. It does not allow other app stores to download from the official Play Store AND it refuses to allow other app stores to buy advertising on its search engine or YouTubE video streaming platform.

Related articles

Usage Warning
Related article:
Warning about the use of free software. Respect the developers
What data Audacity stores
Related article:
What data Audacity collects and what it says it uses it for
Related article:
Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst resigns as IBM president
New lawsuit against Google
Related article:
New lawsuit against Google for its Android application store

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