[[https://mu.se][their website]], Muse is the parent company behind many musical
applications and tools. It was founded by Eugeny Naidenov just days
before it acquired Audacity. Before all of this, Eugeny Naidenov founded
[[https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/][Ultimate Guitar]] (UG) in 1998. The service grew rather quickly and now
has over 300 million users. UG acquired [[https://deanzelinsky.com/][Dean Zelinsky Guitars]] in 2012,
[[http://agilepartners.com/][Agile Partners]] in 2013, [[https://musescore.org/][MuseScore]] in 2017, and [[http://trycrescendo.com/][Crescendo]] in 2018. Muse
Group was established in 2021 and it seems as if all of the services UG
acquired were (or will be) transferred to Muse Group, as well as UG
itself. Immediately following its establishment, Muse not only acquired
I say 30 April because that's when Muse published their [[https://mu.se/newsroom/tpost/6dhedma301-muse-group-acquires-audacity-expanding-c][press release]]
and when Martin Keary (Tantacrul) published a video entitled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMWNvwLiXIQ][/I’m now in
charge of Audacity. Seriously./]] According to his comment,[fn:17] Martin
will help with proposing Audacity's roadmap and many of its future
features as well as working with the community. This has been his role
with MuseScore since he joined that project and he will be continuing it
here.
~-----BEGIN PERSONAL OPINION-----~
Looking at [[https://www.martinkeary.com/][his website,]] I also suspect he will play a large role in
redesigning Audacity's interface. Considering that he was instrumental
in designing [[https://www.martinkeary.com/#/ubuntu-touch-os/][the best mobile interface I've ever had the absolute
pleasure of experiencing,]] I have high hopes that this is the case.
~------END PERSONAL OPINION------~
*** Telemetry implementation
**** Implementation Basics
A few days after the acquisition, a PR was opened that adds /Basic
telemetry for the Audacity/. This implementation collects "application
opened" events and sends those to Yandex to estimate the number of
Audacity users. It also collects session start and end events, errors
for debugging, file used for import and export, OS and Audacity
versions, and the use of effects, generators, and analysis tools so they
can prioritise future improvements. Sending this data would be optional
and the user would be presented with a dialogue the first time they
launch the application after installation or after they update to the
including release. This description was mostly copied directly from [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#issue-629891447][the
PR description itself.]]
**** Frontend Implementation
This is fairly straightforward and a pretty standard UI for prompting
users to consent to analytics and crash logging. This section is
included because the community has strong opinions regarding the
language used and its design, but that will be discussed later. The
screenshot below is copied directly from the PR.
[[/assets/pngs/audacity-pr/consentdialogue.png]]
**** Backend Implementation
Many of the code reviews include the reviewer's personal opinion so I
will summarise the comment, provide the code block in question, and link
directly to the comment in a footnote.[fn:9]
#+BEGIN_SRC c
if (!inputFile.Write (wxString::FromUTF8 (ClientID + "\n")))
return false;
#+END_SRC
[[https://github.com/crsib/audacity/blob/c9264d2478fe2af82aeb6e2a0295b00b3a27ce53/libraries/lib-telemetry/TelemetryManager.cpp#L199-L200][Lines 199-200 of TelemetryManager.cpp]] save the user's unique client ID
to a file.[fn:8] This allows the analytics tool (in this case, Google
Analytics) to aggregate data produced by a single user.
#+BEGIN_SRC c
def_vars()
set( CURL_DIR "${_INTDIR}/libcurl" )
set( CURL_TAG "curl-7_76_0")
#+END_SRC
[[https://github.com/crsib/audacity/blob/c9264d2478fe2af82aeb6e2a0295b00b3a27ce53/cmake-proxies/libcurl/CMakeLists.txt#L3-L6][Lines 3-6 of CMakeLists.txt]] "vendor in" libcurl.[fn:10] This is when an
application directly includes sources for a utility rather than making
use utilities provided by the system itself.
#+BEGIN_SRC c
ExternalProject_Add(curl
PREFIX "${CURL_DIR}"
INSTALL_DIR "${CURL_DIR}"
GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/curl/curl
GIT_TAG ${CURL_TAG}
GIT_SHALLOW Yes
CMAKE_CACHE_ARGS ${CURL_CMAKE_ARGS}
)
#+END_SRC
[[https://github.com/crsib/audacity/blob/c9264d2478fe2af82aeb6e2a0295b00b3a27ce53/cmake-proxies/libcurl/CMakeLists.txt#L29-L36][Lines 29-36 of CMakeLists.txt]] add curl as a remote dependency.[fn:11]
This means that the machine building Audacity from its source code has
[[https://github.com/crsib/audacity/blob/c9264d2478fe2af82aeb6e2a0295b00b3a27ce53/src/telemetry/TelemetryDialog.cpp#L93-L94][Lines 93-94 of TelemetryDialog.cpp]] add buttons to the dialogue asking
the user whether they consent to data collection.[fn:12]~SetDefault~
focuses the button indicating that the user does consent. This means
that if the user doesn't really look at the dialogue and presses
Spacebar or Enter, or if they do so accidentally by simply bumping the
key, they unintentionally consent to data collection. If the user
desires, this can later be changed in the settings menu. However, if
they weren't aware what they were consenting to /or that they did
consent/, they won't know to go back and opt out.
There are other problems with the code that include [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#discussion_r628816050][simple mistakes,]]
[[https://github.https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#discussion_r628774985][styling that's inconsistent with the rest of the project,]] [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#discussion_r628500849][unhandled
return values resulting in skewed data,]] [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#discussion_r628792423][use of inappropriate functions,]]
and [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#discussion_r628818054][spelling errors in the comments.]] I believe these are less important
Another issue that was brought up by a couple of individuals was the
lack of a privacy policy.[fn:16] The consent dialogue links to one, but, at the
time of writing, one does not exist at [[https://www.audacityteam.org/contact/privacy-policy/][the provided URL.]] I have [[https://web.archive.org/web/20210510012924/https://www.audacityteam.org/contact/privacy-policy/][archived
the state of the page]] in case that changes in the future.
**** Opinions on the backend
#+BEGIN_SRC c
if (!inputFile.Write (wxString::FromUTF8 (ClientID + "\n")))
return false;
#+END_SRC
The issue many individuals take with this snippet is saving the
~ClientID~. Say an individual has an odd file that causes Audacity to
crash any time they try to open it. Say they attempt to open it a
hundred times. Without giving the client a unique ID, it could look like
there are 100 people having an issue opening a file instead of just the
one. However, by virtue of each installation having an entirely unique
ID, this telemetry /is not anonymous/. Anonymity would be sending
statistics in such a way that connecting those failed attempts to a
single user would be impossible. At best, this implementation is
/pseudonymous/ because the client is given a random ID, you don't have to
sign in with an account or something.
#+BEGIN_SRC c
def_vars()
set( CURL_DIR "${_INTDIR}/libcurl" )
set( CURL_TAG "curl-7_76_0")
#+END_SRC
Timothe Litt's comment gives a good description of why "vendoring in"
libcurl is a bad idea[fn:19] and Tyler True's comment gives a good
overview of the pros and cons of doing so.[fn:18] Many people take issue
with this /specifically/ because it's libcurl. Security flaws in it are
/very/ common and Audacity's copy would need to be /manually/ kept up to
date with every upstream release to ensure none of its vulnerabilities
can be leveraged to compromise users. If the Audacity team was going to
stay on top of all of the security fixes, they would need to release a
new version every week or so.
#+BEGIN_SRC c
ExternalProject_Add(curl
PREFIX "${CURL_DIR}"
INSTALL_DIR "${CURL_DIR}"
GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/curl/curl
GIT_TAG ${CURL_TAG}
GIT_SHALLOW Yes
CMAKE_CACHE_ARGS ${CURL_CMAKE_ARGS}
)
#+END_SRC
The problem with downloading curl at build-time is that it's simply
disallowed for many Linux- and BSD-based operation systems. When a
distribution builds an application from source, its build dependencies
are often downloaded ahead of time and, as a security measure, the build
machine is cut off from the internet to prevent any interference.
Because this is disallowed, the build will fail and the application
won't be available on those operation systems.
Note, however, that these build machines would have the option to
disable telemetry at build-time. This means the machine wouldn't attempt
to download curl from GitHub and the build would succeed but, again,
telemetry would be disabled for anyone not on Windows or macOS. This
defeats the whole purpose of adding telemetry in the first place.
devices is likely the [[https://remarkable.com/][reMarkable.]] They had a [[https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/08/remarkable-raises-15-million-to-bring-its-e-paper-tablets-to-more-scribblers/][hugely successful
crowdfunding campaign]] and produced the reMarkable 1, followed by [[https://blog.remarkable.com/remarkable-2-the-next-generation-paper-tablet-91b47d0080cb][the
After watching all of [[https://www.youtube.com/c/MyDeepGuide][MyDeepGuide's]] [[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsSI9-gaSSmiXwb7Vjk5Vb-nB41UTnrXd][extensive playlist on the
Before I purchased a Supernote, [[https://old.reddit.com/r/Supernote/comments/lhffyd/sync_targets_open_document_formats_and_crossnote/][I wrote a post]] asking about a couple of
things that concerned me: sync targets, open document formats, and
cross-note links. I don't really plan to write full documents on the
device but having the option to do so would still be nice. The other
features are absolutely killer for me as I would like to maintain a
Zettelkasten (I wrote about [[/vim-as-a-markdown-editor/][using Vim to do so]] last year but didn't end
up sticking with it) and manage document synchronisation with my own
Nextcloud server. The community was quick to respond and confirm that
Zettelkasten functionality would be implemented soon™. u/hex2asc
responded /the day after/ and said that WebDAV would be supported but not
earlier than May (September update: it's still not supported), ODF would
likely not be supported, and cross-note links were definitely a
possibility. Another community member has been avidly following the
[fn:19] [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#issuecomment-834451187][Link to the comment]] and [[/assets/pngs/audacity-pr/privatelibcurl.png][link to the screenshot]]
[fn:18] [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#issuecomment-834010117][Link to the comment]] and [[/assets/pngs/audacity-pr/vendorproscons.png][link to the screenshot]]
[fn:17] [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#issuecomment-836069326][Link to the comment]] and [[/assets/pngs/audacity-pr/tantacrulrole.png][link to the screenshot]]
[fn:16] [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#discussion_r627762185][Link to the comment]] and [[/assets/pngs/audacity-pr/missingprivacypolicy.png][link to the screenshot]]
[fn:15] [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#issuecomment-834286641][Link to the comment]] and [[/assets/pngs/audacity-pr/darkpattern.png][link to the screenshot]]
[fn:14] [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#discussion_r627764300][Link to the comment]] and the screenshot is the same as previous
[fn:13] [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#discussion_r627756976][Link to the comment]] and [[/assets/pngs/audacity-pr/vaguedialogue.png][link to the screenshot]]
[fn:12] [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#discussion_r628124998][Link to the review]] and [[/assets/pngs/audacity-pr/defaultconsentbutton.png][link to the screenshot]]
[fn:11] [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#discussion_r628008821][Link to the review]] and [[/assets/pngs/audacity-pr/externaldependency.png][link to the screenshot]]
[fn:10] [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#discussion_r628005925][Link to the review]] and [[/assets/pngs/audacity-pr/vendorcurl.png][link to the screenshot]]
[fn:9] Note that because I am not a C programmer, these reviews might
not be entirely accurate and I wouldn't be able to catch the reviewer's
error. I am relying on other community members to catch issues and
comment on them; none of the reviews I link to have such comments so I'm
assuming they are correct.
[fn:8] [[https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835#discussion_r627993755][Link to the review]] and [[/assets/pngs/audacity-pr/writeanalyticsid.png][link to the screenshot]]
[fn:7] /Optical Character Recognition/: the program looks at your
handwriting and tries to turn it into text.
[fn:6] In this situation, latency refers to how long it takes for "ink"
[fn:3]Taken from their [[https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006699537-About-reMarkable-2-][support page about the reMarkable 2;]] search the
