It looks like they are reversing the telemetry https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/889
2 Likes
Nice, will they reverse trust? 
Is there something to trust in an open source project? In the end we can all look at the code ourselves. I would rather say you should trust in the community around an open source project.
2 Likes
As long as you wish to check that code yourself on each update - thereās nothing to trustā¦
But you know, itās good to know that maintainer is someone who havenāt missstepped in any way shape or form.
Personally - i hate shady stuff and avoid those who breach trust for whatever reason like a plague.
1 Like
It depends on the nature of the project. If the project is run by a company or a small group than, yes, I think trust is worthy of consideration.
If the project is truly managed by the community than it is a bit different. That being said, only a handful of the projects out there are like this.
1 Like
Relevant:
1 Like
Hereās why you absolutely should drop Audacity in a heartbeat by any means and use FOSS Audacity (hmm, were does it go?) or some other fork, or just other program.
From 0 to spyware in 60 seconds!
That is insane.
P.S. See, told ya! 
While I think the new privacy policy isnāt good, it looks to me like a poorly written legalese than anything else. All these sites calling audacity āspywareā seems totally overblown.
That being said, it seems like the new owners of the product are poor stewards of it. The problem is that there doesnāt seem to be a viable fork by a reputable team yet.
Oh come on, who cares why?
Itās not overblown at all, and itās already 2nd time since new management, but this time is much more hardcore.
Itās DOA.
- Data necessary for law enforcement, litigation and authoritiesā requests (if any)
- 13+ yo to use software
- Both violate GPL license and they can be technically sued i guess
On fork iām sure theyāll figure it out eventually hereās some
1 Like
We will have to agree to disagree on this one. In my opinion, calling open source software āspywareā due to changes in the privacy policy is overblown unless the software is actually changed to collect that data. Since it is open source, any change like that would be visible in the code.
I have used Audacity for many years and I will use it until thereās a real good alternative. If thereās at least one as easy to use multi-track audio editor as Audacity I would gladly move to use it.
The policy itself is absolutely atrocious and unacceptable for free software (and goes contrary to GPL), but Iām not too worried about it because of this particular thing.
Itās just like MuseScore.
Well i donāt know guysā¦
Itās philosophy of basic risks mitigation i guess.
If somebody comes to your door and says he want to kill you and steal your wife, would you be happy to open that door to make sure he actually have a gun?
To me thatās rhetorical question, but maybe people are actually that different 
@mardi
Just follow that issue, iām sure in some time somebody will come up with THE fork.
Well Iām not opening the door blindly, thatās for sure. But I agree itās too early to call it spyware just yet (without finding any code in it that is actually spyware). But they are certainly preparing the ground for it and are not to be trusted.
3 Likes
Also, weāll see what the Debian repo maintainers do about it ā I think this is the easiest way to see whether something malicious gets sneaked into it. Unlike Arch TUs, Debian guys have extremely strict standards for inclusion in the repos.
1 Like
Well, weāll see thenā¦are they GNU style hardcore?
1 Like
The funny thing is they could have just made an āAudacity auto-updaterā as a completely separate component/software if they really wanted the feature that nobody asked for, to avoid, breaking the GPL2/3 license and that shady and vague T&C
P.S. Apart from fork, his fixes like arecord is top notch 
Oh those youtubersā¦ 
1 Like
2 Likes
The problem with these new āone-manā forks is how to you know that person is trustworthy? Also, who is monitoring the code at all?
I think it is better to a wait until a fork becomes widely used before switching.
Also, is it even legal to do that with the license? Can you fork someone elseās project and change the license on it without permission? That seems strange to me. What is the point of licenses in that case?
1 Like