Audacity SOUNDs alarming issue?

[Clarity]

Recent discovery surfaces

Good or bad?

[sonny]

I guess only Audacity 3.0 and up will take effect

[Grey]

The new policy also disallows people under the age of 13 from using the software

Why 13?

The App we provide is not intended for individuals below the age of 13. If you are under 13 years old, please do not use the App.

Yes, of course the 12-year-old boy will obey you

[666philb]

some more info

https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/05/audacity/

[Grey]

some more info
https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/05/audacity/

However, we are occasionally required to share your personal data with our main office in Russia and our external counsel in the USA.

Wow... And at first I thought - how can the Russians be to blame ? Everything turned out to be simpler

A ban on the use of the app by the under-13s (more to do with consent to data collection than audio pr0n, we'd wager)

Audio pr0n? Seriously, is this the official legend ?

[sonny]

some more info
https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/05/audacity/

However, we are occasionally required to share your personal data with our main office in Russia and our external counsel in the USA.

Wow... And at first I thought - how can the Russians be to blame ? Everything turned out to be simpler

A ban on the use of the app by the under-13s (more to do with consent to data collection than audio pr0n, we'd wager)

Audio pr0n? Seriously, is this the official legend ?

"The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act provides some protection to the privacy of young people, but applies only to children under age 13, leaving minors of ages 13 to 17 with little legal protection in their online activities."

http://jaapl.org/content/44/3/313

[dancytron]

Somebody already forked it.

https://github.com/temporary-audacity/audacity

[wiak]

Forks are only as good as the developers who fork original project - if they have the skills to develop and maintain it. Anyone can 'fork' - plenty of 'dead' forks out there so depends on activity thereafter. Also, the original Audacity developers will likely continue to develop their project - then cherry-picking code becomes an issue and cause bitterness between original version and forked version. Worst is when the cherry-picking is done without giving credit to the ideas and/or code being cherry-picked. Open-source does not mean 'steal algorithms, ideas, and code anytime you wish' - individual's intellectual property needs to be respected.

[Jafadmin]

Forks are only as good as the developers who fork original project - if they have the skills to develop and maintain it. Anyone can 'fork' - plenty of 'dead' forks out there so depends on activity thereafter. Also, the original Audacity developers will likely continue to develop their project - then cherry-picking code becomes an issue and cause bitterness between original version and forked version. Worst is when the cherry-picking is done without giving credit to the ideas and/or code being cherry-picked. Open-source does not mean 'steal algorithms, ideas, and code anytime you wish' - individual's intellectual property needs to be respected.

I would imagine this "fork" is a "fork" in name only. It most likely is identical to the original, just with the "analytics" code removed from it.

The first thing I thought about when reading the article was to download the source, remove the spyware analytics, and re-compile the necessary binaries ..

[wiak]

Forks are only as good as the developers who fork original project - if they have the skills to develop and maintain it. Anyone can 'fork' - plenty of 'dead' forks out there so depends on activity thereafter. Also, the original Audacity developers will likely continue to develop their project - then cherry-picking code becomes an issue and cause bitterness between original version and forked version. Worst is when the cherry-picking is done without giving credit to the ideas and/or code being cherry-picked. Open-source does not mean 'steal algorithms, ideas, and code anytime you wish' - individual's intellectual property needs to be respected.

I would imagine this "fork" is a "fork" in name only. It most likely is identical to the original, just with the "analytics" code removed from it.

The first thing I thought about when reading the article was to download the source, remove the spyware analytics, and re-compile the necessary binaries ..

Yes, that would seem like a good strategy. Let's hope the original Audacity developers don't entwine their spyware analytics (if that's what they are) in so tightly that they are difficult (or extremely complex) to remove though.