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Latest Comments by omer666
Fedora considering adding in 'privacy-preserving' telemetry
9 Jul 2023 at 8:12 pm UTC

Quoting: m2mg2
Quoting: omer666
Quoting: m2mg2
Quoting: omer666I think privacy advocacy may be going a little over the top on this subject. I'm all for it, I use a zero-access email provider, do my searches on Duckduckgo, have a LineageOS smartphone without Google services and so on, and yet I don't mind them collecting technical data. It's much less complete than Steam hardware survey and yet I'd bet every Linux gamer will gladly answer this one because they want to improve the system's visibility for game developers. Here the devs want to improve the system, but nope, no sir, this is bad and all.
Can you name anything that improved leaps and bounds after starting to collect telemetry? Gnome does telemetry but they continuously ignore the obvious will of users to do what they want instead. It's less about needing telemetry and more about following the industry trends of collecting data and IGNORING what users want in favor of what developers and platform owners want. The proponents of this over and over acknowledge they can't make it opt-in because users wont opt-in. They can't force an explicit choice because the choice will be no and they know it. This right here says it all. They should just not do it. They are already ignoring users in favor of what they want, you think they are going to completely flip and suddenly start doing things in the interest of the users? Nonsense.

They also make the arguments that users don't care, also total nonsense. Telemetry has been getting forced on users for years against their will. They are so bombarded it would take unrealistic effort to stop it so they submit, effectively by force. Then you guys turn around and say they don't care. They have never been given a choice, except in Linux and now people are trying to take that choice away as well. If you want to collect it, make people want to give it to you. If you can't do that, don't take it. Don't trick them, take via it attrition (bombarding them until they make a mistake by accident) and dark patterns. Be better, be ethical.
Well I am not using Linux just because of privacy, but also for technical reasons, so that's a different case altogether.

I never heard of GNOME using telemetry, but I have a pretty unpopular opinion about how they've been handling user requests since GNOME 3.0... I am glad they haven't listened :grin:
Pretty sure it's opt in, unlike the current proposal but I don't use Gnome and I find Gnome 3 to be an abomination. https://gitlab.gnome.org/vstanek/gnome-info-collect/#fedora [External Link]
I am fine with different people having different tastes :wink:
Following the link you provided, it seems it's never been used and it's not even in the official repos of the distros quoted (apart from Arch)

Fedora considering adding in 'privacy-preserving' telemetry
9 Jul 2023 at 8:08 pm UTC

Quoting: m2mg2
Quoting: omer666
Quoting: m2mg2 
"Firefox, Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, Edge, Windows, IOS, Android, etc. already are collecting this type of data by default."

This quote is from the opt-in opt-out thread. People want Linux to be just like Windows. We use it because it's not Windows. Please, don't make it Windows. Then those of us that care about what Linux is/was, will have to go to BSD.... and we will. Not that the ones who take it over will care.
I don't understand why you think people wanting more freedom will go to an OS which is more closed-source friendly, but why not...
OpenBSD is not closed source friendly.
They still prefer the BSD licence, so I don't see how it is any different from other BSDs in that respect (maybe you can educate me on that subject, I am not that well aware of the differences in the BSD ecosystem)

Fedora considering adding in 'privacy-preserving' telemetry
9 Jul 2023 at 7:30 pm UTC

Quoting: m2mg2 
"Firefox, Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, Edge, Windows, IOS, Android, etc. already are collecting this type of data by default."

This quote is from the opt-in opt-out thread. People want Linux to be just like Windows. We use it because it's not Windows. Please, don't make it Windows. Then those of us that care about what Linux is/was, will have to go to BSD.... and we will. Not that the ones who take it over will care.
I don't understand why you think people wanting more freedom will go to an OS which is more closed-source friendly, but why not...

Fedora considering adding in 'privacy-preserving' telemetry
9 Jul 2023 at 7:24 pm UTC

Quoting: Valck
Quoting: omer666I think privacy advocacy may be going a little over the top on this subject. I'm all for it, I use a zero-access email provider, do my searches on Duckduckgo, have a LineageOS smartphone without Google services and so on, and yet I don't mind them collecting technical data. It's much less complete than Steam hardware survey and yet I'd bet every Linux gamer will gladly answer this one because they want to improve the system's visibility for game developers. Here the devs want to improve the system, but nope, no sir, this is bad and all.
I too use DDG, and I don't have a "smart" phone to begin with, but I admittedly do use Steam to play games that are not available in physical form, or digitally elsewhere, yet I balk every time I have to launch it.
And I do, did, and will reject every invitation to the Steam Survey I am presented with.
I wouldn't bet that there are many others out there that do the same, but you just lost your bet. Awaiting the money... ;)
But seriously, even if something looks like a "sure bet" it's not necessarily true.

Steam already has more than enough data about me than I'd like them to have, and IMO every new iteration of the client makes it even less appealing – the latest brilliant feature is to open a separate window with a prompt to inform me that I'm not signed into their chat system; well guess what, I'm not signed into their chat system for a reason, thank you very much, yet on each and every launch of the Steam client, that window pops up again and needs to be dismissed.
I somehow doubt that having more data would change its direction in the slightest.

And while none of that was specifically about Fedora and its flavour of "telemetry", it all applies just the same, as the comment about the Gnome devs perfectly illustrates. And Fedora the Linux distribution is so much more encompassing than just Gnome the desktop environment.
"Telemetry" certainly is not about aiding the users and improving their experience.
I always lose at bets, that's awful :happy:

Fedora considering adding in 'privacy-preserving' telemetry
9 Jul 2023 at 7:19 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: m2mg2
Quoting: omer666I think privacy advocacy may be going a little over the top on this subject. I'm all for it, I use a zero-access email provider, do my searches on Duckduckgo, have a LineageOS smartphone without Google services and so on, and yet I don't mind them collecting technical data. It's much less complete than Steam hardware survey and yet I'd bet every Linux gamer will gladly answer this one because they want to improve the system's visibility for game developers. Here the devs want to improve the system, but nope, no sir, this is bad and all.
Can you name anything that improved leaps and bounds after starting to collect telemetry? Gnome does telemetry but they continuously ignore the obvious will of users to do what they want instead. It's less about needing telemetry and more about following the industry trends of collecting data and IGNORING what users want in favor of what developers and platform owners want. The proponents of this over and over acknowledge they can't make it opt-in because users wont opt-in. They can't force an explicit choice because the choice will be no and they know it. This right here says it all. They should just not do it. They are already ignoring users in favor of what they want, you think they are going to completely flip and suddenly start doing things in the interest of the users? Nonsense.

They also make the arguments that users don't care, also total nonsense. Telemetry has been getting forced on users for years against their will. They are so bombarded it would take unrealistic effort to stop it so they submit, effectively by force. Then you guys turn around and say they don't care. They have never been given a choice, except in Linux and now people are trying to take that choice away as well. If you want to collect it, make people want to give it to you. If you can't do that, don't take it. Don't trick them, take via it attrition (bombarding them until they make a mistake by accident) and dark patterns. Be better, be ethical.
Well I am not using Linux just because of privacy, but also for technical reasons, so that's a different case altogether.

I never heard of GNOME using telemetry, but I have a pretty unpopular opinion about how they've been handling user requests since GNOME 3.0... I am glad they haven't listened :grin:

Fedora considering adding in 'privacy-preserving' telemetry
9 Jul 2023 at 9:45 am UTC Likes: 6

I think privacy advocacy may be going a little over the top on this subject. I'm all for it, I use a zero-access email provider, do my searches on Duckduckgo, have a LineageOS smartphone without Google services and so on, and yet I don't mind them collecting technical data. It's much less complete than Steam hardware survey and yet I'd bet every Linux gamer will gladly answer this one because they want to improve the system's visibility for game developers. Here the devs want to improve the system, but nope, no sir, this is bad and all.

Classic open source FPS Xonotic 0.8.6 released with new game modes
25 Jun 2023 at 8:10 am UTC

Yes, Xonotic is IMO the best open source FPS ever, and I really appreciate to see some more effort going into it.

Classic LucasArts games emulator DREAMM adds early Linux support
23 Jun 2023 at 3:22 pm UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual
Quoting: CyrilNot open source, so not interested... And the reasons given, seems too much selfish for me.
Out of curiosity, what justification would you accept?

I don't think there's a more common reason for releasing an application under a proprietary license than, "I would like to reserve the exclusive right to commercial exploitation."

Interesting to note the developer of this emulator originally worked on official ports to other operating systems for LucasArts in the '90s.
Can't talk in Cyril's name, but we've seen many such (really good) projects, like Kega Fusion or pSX just to name a few, disappear with their dev altogether after a few years.

Let's say it's okay if you've got one of these games laying around but you can't take this as a permanent solution for playing these until it's open sourced or it's become an official way of running them bundled on Steam.

Nintendo blocked Dolphin emulator release on Steam
29 May 2023 at 7:44 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: benstor214“People who emulate games are all committing piracy.”
I can't remember somebody saying this. Could you cite it please?
Quoting: Mountain ManRight, "game preservation", by which most people mean "free games". :tongue:
Just as a side note, and I know that it is not a fair use in any way, but having those games around "for free" is also part of what I'd call preservation. I mean, who has the money to buy a vintage Catlevania? Retro gaming has entered a new era when professional collectors entered the game and prices are skyrocketing across all platforms.

I am a "retro gamer" myself and still buying games for my Sega systems from time to time, but for example buying PAL Saturn games is something you can't reasonably afford nowadays.
Also supplies are getting scarce because of CD rot, hardware failure and life hazards, so what can be done about this?

Add in community patches and translation that would have never happened either way, and you've got the big picture.

I am all for developers and editors charging for their IPs, but as of today there is no complete offer from any historical hardware maker, so that's where our good old geek community comes to help. That may sound ugly and I apologise for saying "piracy" may in some corner cases be of "public interest," and I still think some additional legislation should be put into place so that we are able to get to a middle ground where everyone is satisfied, but in the mean time we should be thankful this exists at all...

Nintendo blocked Dolphin emulator release on Steam
28 May 2023 at 3:38 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: CyborgZeta
Quoting: Pengling
Quoting: KlaasI've read so much about troubles with quality of the Joy-Cons, but to be fair poor build quality seems to be everywhere. Logitech has had trouble with the quality of the micro switches for the buttons for a long time and they've stopped using optical mouse wheels and have switched to cheap encoders (OT: encoders are always a huge pain – the biggest German electronics compendium has a very long article for workarounds).
It's true that poor build-quality is everywhere nowadays, but the Joy-Cons are of unusually poor-quality - going on my own experience, you'll get anything between 6 to 18 months of gentle use out of a brand new one*, and in the UK while I was a Switch owner you had to pay the cost of a new controller to get them repaired. I believe this has changed now, however.

*I'm a woman, though, so I don't know how well these things last in rougher hands. I've seen reviews suggesting that it may be as little as three months in such cases.

I learned to repair them myself (to their credit, they're designed to be very easy to repair), but there came a point where, on top of everything else that I mentioned, I ended up asking myself why an end-user should have to repair carefully-used almost-new products constantly. :unsure:
Honestly, stuff like that makes me sad to hear, regardless of my feelings towards Nintendo today. My experience growing up with Nintendo handhelds was they they were extremely durable and reliable; even the original "phat" DS could withstand a drop on a concrete driveway without it breaking a sweat. And as far as console were concerned, the GameCube had long been my gold standard for reliability; I never had a single problem with it. The only other console I have that can match it in the regard is my PS3 Slim. My JP Dreamcast is pretty old as well and runs good...but I only acquired it last year, and don't know its entire history prior to my obtaining it. Had fun playing Sakura Wars 2-4 on it though!

Apologies for the rambling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA_uS4nMvtA [External Link]

More on subject: maybe they are planning on releasing a Wii Classic running Dolphin? Would be quite fun ^^'

More seriously, hating on Nintendo for this would also mean hating on Sony for terminating both Bleem and Connetix Virtual Game Station...

Console market is ultra protective by design.