 If you do anything with audio on Linux, chances are you use Audacity. Now there are other audio editors and audio recorders out there for Linux, and many of them are really good. They're even a couple of really professional ones. But Audacity is probably by far the most popular. A couple of months ago, Audacity was purchased by a company called Muse Group, and since then they've proceeded to piss off every single user that they have. And as far as I can tell, they've actually done nothing in terms of actually improving the product. All they have done so far is try to institute telemetry and use Google to do it, and that pissed everybody off. And then they forced every developer that contributes from the community to sign an agreement that allowed them full control over that code. And that pissed a lot of people off, mainly because of the first fiasco, nobody trusts Muse Group. Those agreements really aren't all that unusual. But because this company doesn't have very much trust, people were rightfully worried that Muse Group would take Audacity's code and maybe make it proprietary or something, because like I said, nobody trusts this company. A few months later now, after those fiascos, they're doing it again. They've changed their privacy policy, and it's not what you would say false-friendly. It's not good at all. So that's what we're going to talk about today. And I just want to say this, Audacity is going to get forked. I mean, it was probably going to anyways, but somebody out there is planning on forking Audacity and it's returning to be a community project. That's probably what's going to happen, but let's go ahead and jump into this. So first of all, just as proof that I use Audacity, I'm using Audacity right now. I use Audacity to edit all the podcasts, all the videos. My other podcast, the three casts I use Audacity for, so Audacity is a really important program to me. I use it every single day. And the fact that I can no longer trust the developers behind it is a little worrying. So let's go ahead and talk about what's going on. So the first we really knew about this was a post on their GitHub two days ago from a user called shh, this. I can't pronounce that. Basically what they did is they linked to this privacy policy here and pointed out a few things that aren't so great about it. So I'm not going to actually go through and read all of this thing, but there's a few things that are worrying. So first of all, there's this. This app we provide, which they're talking about Audacity is not intended for individuals below the age of 13. Now, I don't know if you know this, but the GPL v2 doesn't actually allow the developers to limit the people who use their software. It's right in the license. You can't deny anyone from using it. That's part of what GPL is. Now there are some comments in this post here that we'll go back to that basically say that this was probably done because of the GDPR in the EU. In that legislation, children under 13 can't consent to a privacy policy at all. So that's probably what reason why they put this in here. The next big portion that is bad is this one here. Number four, who does Audacity share your personal data with? So first of all, the answer to this question should be no one, right? I mean, this is an offline audio editor. They should not be collecting any data whatsoever, none. Audacity should never call back to Muse Group servers without the knowledge of the user. They should be collecting no data. We may disclose the personal data listed above your hash IP address to the following categories of recipients, the staff members, any competent law enforcement body, regulatory government agency, court or third party. I mean, who came up with this and thought that this was a good idea? Moreover, who came up with this and thought, well, you know, the Fox community is going to be perfectly fine with us sending any data we might have to the law enforcement should they request it. I mean, that's perfectly fine. I was going, that's fine. These people are idiots. I mean, the next one, our auditors, advisors, legal representatives and similar agents. So basically this means anybody. I mean, anybody could be an advisor. I mean, that's just crazy. So it reads in full to our auditors, advisors, legal representatives and similar agents in connection with advisory services they provide for us for legitimate business purposes. So basically any reason that they can consider a legitimate business purpose, which would be, again, anything under contractual prohibition of using the personal data for any other purpose. So we'll give basically what they're saying is we'll give them your data as long as they promise really nicely not to do anything other with it other than what we allow them to do, which again, they don't say what they'll allow them to do whatever to a potential buyer. So if music group were to get purchased, the people who bought it would automatically get your data as well. And to any other person, if you have provided your prior consent or disclosure, which we didn't provide a prior. I mean, you provide your prior to consent and disclosure just by agreeing to this privacy policy. That's how they would argue it. This is the most atrocious thing I've ever seen in a floss software cream. This is a piece of floss software that is maybe the most used piece of floss software outside of OBS and Blender. Outside of Linux itself, probably. I mean, between those four things, Linux, OBS, Blender, Audacity has to be in the top four of most used pieces of floss software. And now that this has been purchased by this evil corporation, I'm just going to go out there and say it's the evil corporation. They're doing this shit. I mean, what the hell is going on with Audacity? So there are a few other things in here that are actually really worrying. So the first one is their data storage and retention policy. They say that the IP address will only be stored in an identifiable way for one calendar day. Okay, that's not horrible, but they shouldn't be storing it at all. The next one here is we may also store your personal data for the pursuit of exercising, establishing and defending our legal rights in accordance with applicable laws. Now, that is an interesting way of putting it. So that basically means anything that they deem necessary to save for protecting their rights they can keep. Now, the next one is very interesting. All of your personal data is stored on our servers in the EEA. However, we are occasionally required to share your personal data with our main office in Russia and our external council in the USA. So I don't know. I mean, I don't want to come across as, you know, anti-Russian. I mean, because I know I probably have people from Russia who watch the channel. Plenty of good people in Russia. Government, not necessarily the most trustworthy in the world. I'm just going to put that out there. I don't think it's shocking news to anybody. So they have to share your identifiable information on your personal information with their main office in Russia from time to time. In other words, whenever they want to. Supposedly, and this is the second part of this, we have put an appropriate safeguards, which includes the European Commission's standards, contractual clauses, to ensure that whenever your personal data is transferred outside the EEA to countries that are not deemed adequate by the European Commission, your personal data receives an adequate level of protection in accordance with the GDPR. The thing is, you say that I don't trust you and I don't trust my data in Russia. I mean, I just don't. I'm sorry. I don't even if it's just my IP address. I don't trust my data in Russia. That's a big thing. It's just, it's this whole policy, every single thing that you have on here is not good. Right. This whole thing is not a good privacy policy. And the fact that they have a privacy policy to begin with is, is, is dumb. Because again, this is an offline audio editor. They should have none of your information, none. There should be no reason for them to have your IP address or any other personally identifiable information, your OS, whatever. Now, at least they shouldn't have those things without your consent. And as far as I'm concerned, they don't have anybody's consent. Whenever I open up Audacity, I don't actually get, I mean, they have that splash screen for the first time you open up Audacity, but they've had that for years. And I actually wonder if that has changed because I haven't actually opened up a fresh install of Audacity in a while. So it's possible that they've added something, you know, like a policy privacy policy on top of that. I'm not actually sure what was on there before. I don't think I've ever actually read it now that I think about it. But still, I mean, they shouldn't have your, your, your personal data. They shouldn't have it. This company can obviously cannot be trusted. Just to go back to where I was before, I mean, there's more going on here. But it's more interesting to go through these, some of these comments. So this part here is actually just talking about this language here about how it doesn't comply with the GPL v2 or the GPL v3. So that, I mean, they're in violations of the license that their software is licensed under. So that's, I mean, whatever. This person says basically what I say that there's a fork is going to happen. I mean, somebody is going to fork this and take it over and get a lot of donations to do so. It's almost a guarantee. And I'm actually kind of shocked that it hasn't happened yet. I thought for sure that this, that would happen after the first, you know, fiasco with the whole telemetry thing. But it hasn't, as far as I know, audacity has been forked many, many times. I mean, if we go, if we go up here to the top, it's been forked over a thousand times, almost 1500 times, including me. I've forked it as well. It's on my GitHub page because, you know, after that first one, I was like, what happens if they decided to take a proprietary? I kind of want this. So a lot of people have forked it. As far as I know, there are no official projects in terms of actually taking it and developing it further. But it's only a matter of time, I think. So what the hell is going on with audacity? I mean, like I said, I think it's going to be forked. It feels like MuseGrip only purchased audacity in order to troll the floss community or something. I mean, granted, they've only had it for a couple of months. So expecting them to do a whole UI refresh, which is desperately needs in a couple of months is, you know, obviously not going to be realistic. But the only changes they've made in those two months have been negative ones. Audacity 3.0 did come out, but I'm not sure if it was before or after the purchase. But even then, that change had been in progress for many months beforehand. So they had nothing to do with the new file format or anything like that. And even then, that's not a huge change. So what the hell are they doing with audacity? They seem to just be trying to find a way to make it profitable, yes? I don't know. None of the changes that they've made so far have been community-facing. Things that have been in the best interests of the community, of the people who use audacity. They've only been in the best interests of MuseGrip. And that's not, I mean, it shouldn't be surprising considering their corporation and their interest is in making money. But it still feels like they've misjudged the community. Because like I said, this is going to get forked. People are going to move away from this. And I mean, sure, some people will still use it. And maybe somewhere down the line, MuseGrip actually does some good things to actually advance and modernize audacity. And people start using it again. But it doesn't feel that that's the way that this is headed. This feels like audacity is going to become a dead project because very few people will actually use it. So at least people who pay attention will actually use it. So that is it for me. There's a lot more to this. And I will leave the links to this GitHub page or the GitHub thread in the comments below as well as the privacy policy itself. So you can take a look for yourself and you definitely should. And I will also link a couple of videos that will explain the first two fiascos so that you can get a more in depth feeling of what has happened so far. So let me know in the comments below if you're going to continue to use audacity and whether or not you think that you'll move to a fork when it inevitably happens. So you can follow me on Twitter at Linuxcast. You can support me on patreon.patreon.com slash linuxcast. And you can also support me by hitting the join button down below if you want to support me here on YouTube with money. So before I go I should take a moment to thank my current patrons. Devon, Marcus, Meglin, Donnie's Fen, East Coast Web, Mitchell, Chris, Merrick and Camp. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time.