DISQUS

i'm interested in a boxee invite -- everyone i know who's using it loves it

thanks!

Hi Robert -- we just renewed our financial arrangement with Google through November 2011, and this will have no effect on that.

@unknown: it's not a zero-day, it's at the moment undisclosed, and ZDI will give us time to patch. So there's no real user risk at present.

Hi Ben - while I'm sympathetic to that argument, and believe that users should have control over their own usage information (just like web providers should have control over who they offer their services to), I think reducing the information collected is at the moment a very very unlikely thing to happen. So I'd prefer to have a more textured conversation about what's okay, what's not okay, how it's okay, how it's not okay, etc.

Because just collecting less information isn't actually the answer. I myself would prefer that software vendors were more active in collecting crash data, for example, as it's something that makes products better. (We're trying to help other OSS projects do this, too, with our work on Brakepad and Socorro. We keep our own top crasher data open, and I'd hope that openness facilitates or will facilitate cross project insight on crashers that might be caused by shared components.)

Anyway, it seems to me that "collect everything!" and "collect nothing!" are both straw men proposals, and we need to get a more nuanced conversation going. And that without going into the uncomfortable corners that elicit strong emotion (like I seem to have done), you can't figure much out that's really meaningful.

hi ben -- you're right that privacy is core -- it's core to everything we do -- and i don't think that anything i'm writing here contradicts that.

the web today collects *much* data about people in ways that aren't helpful at all. what we're trying to do is have a conversation about what that is, and to allow normal folks to have a say in what data gets collected, how it's used.

fwiw, i think that discussion of stuff like this *is* core to open source.

this isn't economics driving it -- it's trying to level the playing field more than it is today, and to have real discussion here.

(btw, i wanted to connect with you directly, as i felt your writeup on heise was a little overharsh & didn't really reflect the substance of the conversation that we're having here)

Rudiger, Tom, tekonaut, nobody plans to make this spyware, I tried to make it clear that we'd only do this by figuring out a way to be very very opt-in, the data would be open to everyone, and not personal in any way. That's why we're talking about it in the very early stages as we explore the space.

I hear your concerns; take them very seriously. Feedback is what we're after.

seems great so far. only thing that's a little disappointing is that performance of the admin UI seems very slow. but there's like 150% more orange in the UI, so seems like a win. :-)

Chuck, a few things I'll point out: I don't have any problem at all with Apple (or anyone) bundling products with other products. What I was articulating in my other piece is that using a software updater for that purpose is misleading *at best*.

We do indeed have a commercial relationship with Google (and Yahoo, Answers, Amazon, Baidu, etc) -- but there's also an easy opt-out -- switch the search engine, or don't use it. But it was installed at the same time that Firefox was installed.

I appreciate your point, but don't believe that we're talking about the same thing.

@Kelson & Timothee: I'm sure you're both right -- but I naturally follow the browser space more closely, and that's why I noticed this in particular this time.

but doesn't it seem strange that there aren't really good answers here?

NYT is good, and something i track, but not so good with pop culture or sports or tech, really. i'm sorta lowbrow in my pop culture -- maybe i should just start checking ew.com.

i did really like my Duo -- this is a better machine. it really, really highlights how much we need higher bandwidth wireless connections. plugging into the external speakers makes me want bluetooth audio a lot; plugging into the external monitor makes me want some sort of UWB connection. but yep, the Duo had a lot of really great things in the dock, including the built in hard drive -- i'm starting to use .mac (and eventually dropbox, i think) to sync everything with an external data store. definitely changing the way that i use my machine lately, but as i say, probably not for everyone.

@matt! ha! i read all sorts of things, and like this one. i think it's a bit like The Simpsons, and aimed at a bit of everyone....or maybe my reading skills are deteriorating.

hey gerv -- what i mean is that he takes phrases and fragments from both works, and uses the set of words that are most useful to him, without looking at the larger context that those words are in, or the meaning. it's a cheap parlor trick to take parts of sentences and paragraphs from any book to support any argument you want to make -- he does that a lot in this book.

i actually don't presuppose there's a "true message" of either book (which gives some insight into my point of view, i suppose), and i do have some background in reading both works, although not as current as i'd like.

the point i'm making here is that i dislike the construction of his argument, and the way that he puts fragments in as supporting evidence. i think it's a relatively juvenile way to argue the point, whether ultimately supported or not.

hey carl, seth, alan, harley -- you're all exactly right -- i should have listed linux distros as a significant factor in the "firefox dark matter" in the world -- it exists, but we don't have ways to see it. linux use certainly accounts for at least single-digit millions every day (and maybe more), but it's hard to say exactly how many. easier to approximate this number than it is folks using it behind enterprise firewalls, though.

hey jesse -- actually, we don't know. what we do know is that in the days following new dot releases, we see a clear decline in usage -- 10% or more -- and it takes a few days to recover. working theory at the moment is that it takes a while for the anti-virus programs to recognize the new firefox is valid -- we don't really know though, so that's a good example of a question that tracking the stats raises that we need to figure out.

hmm. maybe. i know for a fact i can't read whole books on my iphone. screen is too small, and the lcd is too hard on the eyes. e-ink has the optical characteristics of paper -- much much easier to read over the long term. but i read a LOT of books now, so i can understand other people making different choices.

yeah, i don't really know. i think that participation in upside is basically the important key. as i get older, i find myself siding more and more often with "labor" in arguments. in this particular case, as a pure consumer, i enjoy what the writers do more than any other actor in the value chain, so i'd like to see them compensated.

thanks john! things look a lot better now!!

hey nicholas -- you should read the first section -- corn is okay, of course, we just seem to be ingesting an awful lot of the low grade variety...

rob, actually, all i meant was what the amazon thing does, which is to automatically put things into itunes for me (which i didn't know it did).

you're right that it's not open, you're right that it's closed. would be better to be open like songbird for sure.

fwiw, i only have apple playback devices at the moment, so it's not a burning need for me, but yes, open would be better.

They're each $79, plus the windows license. Installation is super easy on both.

yep. it's getting easier & doesn't take all that long. not perfect, of course.

hey adam --

i like my pearl, too, but it doesn't change the way i think about devices as much as the iphone does. one interesting thing is that i don't think my cell phone is my most important device anymore -- i live more and more of my life through the internet, which i think is changing the way i think about what i carry around.

and no, you can't read e-mail in widescreen mode, but i don't think there's a display issue with e-mail in vertical mode. the screen resolution means i can see more of my e-mail than on any other device so far, and it makes a big difference.

hey JT -- i'd say that the recent decisions (like the last week) show that irrespective of what Roberts did in his first term, they're deeply divided along political lines now, in a very destructive way.