Law of Jante - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante <comment><USER2> I think foreigners tend to profoundly misunderstand what the law of Jante is about. It is not guidelines for how to behave in Scandinavia. It is a caricature we use ourselves to fight negative aspects of our culture. IMHO it is the negative aspects of things which are actually positive in Scandinavia. Humbleness, solidarity, consensus seeking, honesty are good Scandinavian virtuous. But there is always a flip side of the coin.

It is like in America, having faith in yourself and be proud of yourself are virtuous things, but there is also a flip side to it which is negative. That is bragging, being self centered and selfish. Taking sole credit for success of which you were only a participant.

Janteloven is not something to be celebrated but a rethotical tool to use against fellow Scandinavians when they are acting too negative towards an individual trying to do something great and new.

<comment><USER3> I don't really find the law of jante very applicable to Scandinavia, at least not uniquely so. Scandinavia is in many ways one of the most individualistic places in the world, in terms of things like social values or religion.

It's seem like most people who mention the law either seem to describe things prevalent in many parts of the world, don't agree with egalitarianism or dislikes the fore mentioned individualism.

<comment><USER4> How much time have you spent in Scandinavia? I grew up there and it's very much alive and well.

<comment><USER3> Most of my life.

I don't deny there is a certain consensus driven culture with a general fear of conflict. But I don't agree that Scandinavia in particular has, as people tend to argue, a dislike for successful people nor necessarily of people being different, as long as there is also substance. Especially with there being so many well liked successful Scandinavians. It seems to me like people most often mean:

A) That the grass is greener somewhere else. Which can be true in many cases, but is usually more down to individual circumstances.

B) That they like more appreciation for their social status. As in more egalitarian societies few things are by themselves impressive.

C) Or that they actually want more collectivism and people to be invested in their success, in contrast to the sometimes cold Scandinavian individualism.

In term more destructive collectivism I think the US/UK (who loves to hate celebrities), central Europe (where everyone have only themselves to blame) and Asia (with a lot of social pressure) is worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Moderation and a comparatively egalitarian approach are quintessential Danish qualities, all too often thoughtlessly maligned and ridiculed. The fact is, for better or worse, these traits have served us well as a functioning society for the last thousand years, and in my guess, far longer back than that. A few data points: The last Danish regent or head of government to die violently was king Erik Klipping. The date may resonate with some Americans. It was the 22nd of November. But it was in the year 1286. We have had no real civil warfare since the late viking age. Some unrest leading up to the reformation ("Count's Feud") was actually a war against North Germans. The reformation itself was settled fairly amicably. No real bloodshed, the monks and nuns were often allowed to stay in their monastries for as long as they lived. No pitched battles in 1848/49\. A delegation went and saw the king. A democratic constitution was announced. An overwhelming majority of Danish jews escaped unharmed to neutral Sweden in 1943, a thing only possible because of a quiet but widespread support in the general population.

Really, we haven't done too badly. But it's not a societal model particularly well geared towards the present day influx of large numbers of people with quite different and often more muscular attitudes to everyday interictions.

<comment><USER6> Well I think the schleswig-holsteiners would disagree. They fought two wars before they were allowed to decide for themselves:-)

<comment><USER5> There were complex aspects about both those wars. But they were indisputably fought between Danes and Germans. Schleswig-Holstein was a German duchy under the Danish king, _not_ a paart of Denmark proper.

The second war, in 1864, ended with a huge loss of Danish territory to the emerging German superstate. The northern half of this territory was returned to Denmark in 1920, with the southern remaining German. This was the result of a referendum in the wake of World War 1. Everything was orderly and civilized, and the border region to this day remains a model of how to handle such things without undue upheaval - thus exactly confirming my point above.

<comment><USER6> Well - that is how things evolved - but in the early 800, when the ejderen border was created no one thought of themselves as german.

<comment><USER5> Probably not. Although I am getting ever more suspicious about the latter day dogma about the nation as a purely modern invention. Denmark was well enough defined and understood a thousand years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You learn about this when you grow up in Sweden.

Wise people will tell you to disregard it as it won't get you anywhere.

Wise listeners will take that advice to heart but also refrain from mentioning their progress too much as that might put sticks in the wheels when moving through society.

The end result is perhaps something resembling humbleness. Which, if it comes from the heart, is a beautiful quality to have and strive for. But when its imposed on you by society gets a slightly more ominous tint.

</comment><comment><USER8> As a Dane, this is what I grew up with. One of the reasons I love living in New York is that it's simply non-existent.

However, I do think the Law of Jante exists in most small communities where being the same is considered a virtue.

</comment><comment><USER9> As a German living in Sweden since more than a decade ago, I've often appreciated the impact the Law of Jante has on Swedish culture. However, at least in central Stockholm, many people nowadays express aversion against the Jante Law, as they associate it with the old socialist Sweden in which many of the freedoms (and choices) of today apparently didn't exist. I'd assume though that it still works as a guiding principle in many decisions Swedes make and behavior they demonstrate - no matter what they publicly say about this philosophy. Compared to Germans and many other cultures I know, Swedes are pretty good at not taking themselves too seriously, which I consider to be a result of Jante.

</comment><comment><USER10> Wow. I just learned about this on a visit to Norway. The way it was explained to me, this is one factor that could hold the Norwegians back as they move toward a post-oil economy, because they're going to need to focus on sectors like tech where there's huge variance in talent and outcomes which they'll have to accept to make it work. That said, there was some great activity in Oslo during Innovation Week.

<comment><USER2> It is a caricature and not exactly how we act in Norway. I work in the Norwegian tech sector and don't really see this as the problem.

The problem is more about getting investors to novel ideas. It is much easier to get investors to back crazy ideas in the US than in Norway.

Other than that I think Norway has many strengths. It has an efficient government where it is easy and quick to start a company. Unlike the US starting a company is low risk because you got covered with public health care regardless. You got good unemployment benefits you can use for a year while getting your company up and running.

I honestly never felt there was a shirtage of ideas and talent in Norway. The problem is on the business side of things. We are poor at marketing ourselves and think in terms of how to profit from innovations.

But it is in no way impossibe to make it in Norway. Most of our billionaires are self made. In fact we have more billionaires prr capita than the US and more social mobility.

<comment><USER10> I totally buy that Norway has many strengths, and like I said, I was really impressed with the entrepreneurs I met there.

I think the problem with cultivating a tech ecosystem in many first-world cities is the lack of capital channeled through sophisticated investors who can deploy it in tech.

That's one factor behind Silicon Valley's continued gravity for international entrepreneurs -- they keep running into the funding gaps in their homelands. Sadly, the Trump administration seems to be making it harder for international talent and international capital to meet in the US.

I lived in Europe for many years, and saw a lot of capital that just wanted a safe real estate bet.

> Most of our billionaires are self made. In fact we have more billionaires > per capita than the US and more social mobility.

Sure. But Norway is a country with enormous oil reserves, like the Gulf Emirates. That's basically luck. The question is: How can you build an economy with less/zero dependence on arbitrary allocations of natural resources, especially given that the price of energy is trending toward zero?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm reminded of [http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html) (and I was curious how much people who've lived in each place agree with the descriptions of the messages, and how stable they are over time).

</comment><comment><USER12> Not this again...

</comment><comment><USER13> How then in Sweden we have a startup boom?

<comment><USER8> Because it has nothing to do with the Jante Law. Those who succeed don't comply to it.

<comment><USER14> Sure they do, at least some of them. People frown upon anyone, including billionaires, who is too full of themselves, and I think you can definitely tell the difference if you compare the 1% in Scandinavia with places such as New York.

An anecdote will illustrate what I mean. My mother was at the pharmacy once, and as the lady at the register was explaining to the man in front of her how the discount system works, with stamps etc he listened politely and patiently. She couldn't have guessed that he was the owner of H&M, the 17th richest man in the world.

The older I get and the more I travel the more I appreciate this aspect of life in Scandinavia and I don't think there is any indication that this has hampered growth or entrepreneurship, quite the opposite.

The point is not that you shouldn't do your best, succeed and make a lot of money, it's about how you should behave if you do succeed.

<comment><USER8> Not sure I understand what you are arguing compared to what I said. Can you be a little more specific.

<comment><USER14> Maybe I misunderstood you, but it seems you're saying that people _either_ "comply" with Jante or succeed, but my point was that Jante, broadly understood, affects even successful people.

Sure, if you take it literally then I suppose it would stop people from succeeding but the way I see it "Jante" is what explains the relative humility of many successful Scandinavians. In a way it's just a flippant way to describe the (downsides of) the Nordic egalitarianism, as argued eloquently elsewhere. So in that sense there is no real opposition between Sweden being full of successful entrepreneurs while enforcing Jante.

<comment><USER8> Humility is not what Jante Law is about. Jante Law is about conformity. You definitely don't have to live in Scandinavia to be a humble millionaire or even billionaire. In fact, one could argue that the successful people in Scandinavia are humble because of the fear of the Jante Law.

All I was saying is that people who are successful mostly ignore the Jante Law otherwise they wouldn't try to become successful, to begin with.

None of this is an exact science of course.

<comment><USER14> >In fact, one could argue that the successful people in Scandinavia are humble because of the fear of the Jante Law.

This is pretty much what I _am_ arguing.

<comment><USER8> Ok, not sure how that contradicts what I said which was about becoming successful not about how you deal with the law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> are we seriously not gonna mention that this is a thing because Nordic countries have a homogeneous population?

try not to stand out when you're the only person in the room that's not a 6 ft tall pale skinned blonde

<comment><USER16> It refers to fashion, behaviour and the like, not your natural physical attributes, that I may add are not quite accurate either. I am not 6' tall nor am I blond, despite being to my knowledge ethnically Swedish or Scandinavian since at least a century back. I moved away from Sweden a couple of years ago but the Sweden in which I grew up in there were a lot of immigrants for various reasons and by now a couple of generations of them. Some of these people have now become major popculture phenomenons precisely because they do not follow the stereotypical Law of Jante characteristics, most notably Zlatan Ibrahimovic who is no stranger to claiming to be the best or speaking his mind.

Personally, I find the effect of the Law of Jante to in many cases hold back the progress of Sweden, in that the desire to improve is often low to non- existent, okay is preferable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Leprous, a Norwegian band, has an album "Tall Poppy Syndrome" with lyrics which reflect this law: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36HuYPnx5oE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36HuYPnx5oE)

</comment><comment><USER18> You can condense the ten rules down to one:

1\. You're not to think.

<comment><USER19> I think "Be humble" would be a better one-line version. They're basically about not believing oneself superior to others.

<comment><USER20> Not really. Notice the stuff about you not being better than us or having anything to teach us. Janteloven has the flip side that everyone thinks that they have nothing to learn.</comment></comment></comment>


What Is Bitcoin: Internet's Native Money or Asset for Speculation? - <AUTHOR> https://forklog.media/what-is-bitcoin-internets-native-money-hedging-instrument-or-asset-for-speculation/ <comment><USER2> Bitcoin value is in it's potential to become a savings technology(store of value, digital gold, hard money) on the internet.

Decentralisation is a spectrum, expensive and slow is intentional in it's design to provide the highest level of security and trustlesness. If you want fast and cheap transactions then blockchain is not the answer.

If Bitcoin goes mainstream, layer 0 will be used for large value transactions. Rest will be moved off chain to custodial wallets and on probably a much smaller scale lightning, liquid and ethereum. Compared to fiat, transparency and opting out of centralized systems are easier.

The real question is not whether Bitcoin is a good SoV but if Austrian economics and sound money are a better alternative to our present economic system[1].

Either way, I believe Bitcoin might become the safe-haven asset that people could fall back on in times of inflation[2].

I think the following arguments against Bitcoin are not useful.

\- X blockchain is faster than bitcoin.

\- PoW is wasteful.

\- Bitcoin is used for drugs so cannot be money.

\- Whales can manipulate the price.

[1] [http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/whyaust.htm](http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/whyaust.htm)

[2] [https://news.bitcoin.com/countries-suffering-from-rapid- infl...](https://news.bitcoin.com/countries-suffering-from-rapid-inflation- show-significant-demand-for-cryptos/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I had a big insight on bitcoin:

* "Sound money" groups have one set of wishes of what will happen to the US Dollar

* Some parts of the population want money printing to pay for services.

* WallStreet likes money printing US Dollars to bail them out.

* Everyone has an agenda for US Dollars.

Here is what happens to bitcoin:

* Bitcoin (and Ethereum) were given a historic strategic value by the US Gov because they get grand fathered in that they are not required to have KYC & AML. Future crypto tokens will, and they will be held back.

* Bitcoin is where citizens can turn to, when money printing doesn't match their agenda. What is amazing, is that they don't need to get approval from the full citizen base. This is great for citizens that are hurt by money printing.

Right now, it is for speculation for investors. But the investors are investing towards more usage as a currency in the future.

<comment><USER4> Why would you spend or invest a currency that magically goes up whenever there is demand for it?

The hard money aspect of Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies guarantees that they will be speculation devices that will behave like iterative Ponzi- like games of chance (even if they were not explicitly intended as such). Any increase in their use as currencies will drive their value up which will paradoxically discourage their use as a currency, leading to boom-bust cycles. These will be quite extreme as Bitcoin and its ilk are much more deflationary than precious metals or other traditional commodity monies. They are not only absolutely finite but are subject to breakage (permanent loss) due to lost secret keys.

This is why the entire world rejected hard asset money and fiat money pegged to hard assets. It's bad for the actual economy where actual economy is defined as actually doing things in the real world. Money is a means to an end not an end in itself.

<comment><USER5> Because what you're saying is some dreamland example everyone always repeats like a scratched disc.

Why would you buy a CPU today when you know next year it will be at least 1/2 price or twice more performant?

Why buy a new phone today when tomorrow it will be cheaper?

Why marry a woman/guy today when you know tomorrow there will be a younger and better looking person out there?

Thats what you're saying. It doesn't hold true. I want something TODAY, not tomorrow, or next week. So if i had some gold or bitcoin, i would exchange some of it for the thing i want.

Lastly, some of the bitcoin-USD payment processors saw the largest volumes DURING the bubble of Dec 2017. What that means is as people got richer they started buying goods with their highly appreciated bitcoin.

<comment><USER4> I used to subscribe to the pop Austrian hard money ideology. Watching cryptocurrency devolve into a HODL cult and gambling casino is one of the things that changed my mind. I saw by watching the evolution of Bitcoin that Keynes was right, at least about that particular topic. Everything Keynesian and modern monetary theorists said would happen happened, and for easy to understand reasons. In science we call that a correct prediction.

What I saw in 2017 was a giant bubble driven by the greater fool theory followed by a complete abandonment of cryptocurrency as a payment method. This abandonment actually coincides with the bubble as this boom-bust cycle made it very inconvenient to use as a currency.

All this accomplished was to make early adopters rich at the expense of later adopters, like any Ponzi. (Again I don't think it was an intentional scam, but unfolded as a Ponzi for structural reasons.) Today I am hard pressed to find anyone who accepts Bitcoin for anything but drugs and black/grey market stuff, and those people have a special need that overcomes the currency's downsides as such.

Today the cryptocurrency world seems like nothing but scams and even those are fading away. Most articles I see about it are scammy.

Bitcoin is very unlike gold. Gold costs little to nothing to maintain while BTC has a huge electricity cost. That must be slowly consuming the actual value in the ecosystem. Eventually nothing will be left but Tethers and other fictional tokens. When those collapse the music will be over.

<comment><USER5> That's got nothing to do with your initial comment nor my response.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would highly recommend Felix Martin's "Money: The Unauthorized Biography" to anyone who is interested in the underlying subject of money.

Martin's basic argument is that money is simply a social technology.

I don't believe that bitcoin is the internet's native "money" but I do believe it is the internet's native "gold." I believe future currencies (as some currently do) will peg their value to Bitcoin. However, once the first major corporation begins accepting bitcoin then it just might as well be what we classically view as "money".

[https://www.amazon.com/Money-Unauthorized-Biography- Coinage-...](https://www.amazon.com/Money-Unauthorized-Biography-Coinage- Cryptocurrencies/dp/0345803558)

</comment><comment> GuB-42 For now, you can't do much with Bitcoin besides buying drugs and paying ransoms. But people expect it to become more important in the future, and that's the main reason why they buy Bitcoin.

So, it is like 99% speculation and 1% "internet money", a big part of that 1% is for illegal activity.

<comment><USER7> Cash is used for illegal activity at a scale that dwarfs Bitcoin.

<comment><USER8> True, and cash is used for any activity at a scale that dwarfs Bitcoin. It makes sense to compare their ratio of illegal to all transactions in this case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bitcoin is terrible for transacting (slow, expensive, traceable), but I think its use case will be to provide a store of value, hence the "digital gold" description.

Monero is closer to Internet's native money imo, and that doesn't seem to have nearly the drastic swings that BTC has had in the last few months.

That being said, use case for store of value is difficult since whales can manipulate the price so easily.

<comment><USER10> It doesn't have to be terrible for transacting though. There are tons of ways to make Bitcoin better, but nobody wants to try them.

<comment><USER11> Why make bitcoin better when you can just reimplement it from the ground up?

Look at Stellar. Transactions take <5 seconds and the chain is kind to the environment with trust based transactions rather than POW.

<comment><USER12> Look at how centralized Stellar is and then you have your answer for <5s tx

<comment><USER10> There is the question of, is trustlessness even needed or is federation enough?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can't even load the site due to some issue with their Cert, but based on the headline it's the latter. Bitcoin as a currency is hugely problematic, while as an asset its inherent deflationary nature makes it surprisingly safe as an investment, assuming you have plenty of time to wait out the enormous volatility of the system.

Sure it's basically a giant pyramid scheme, but since everyone is incentivized so strongly to keep holding and not selling it has remained remarkably stable as far as pyramid schemes go.

<comment><USER14> > while as an asset its inherent deflationary nature makes it surprisingly > safe as an investment

My toenail clippings have an inherently deflationary nature. Yet, nobody's knocking down my door to collect them. What gives?

<comment><USER15> >My toenail clippings have an inherently deflationary nature.

how can they be deflationary (unless you're dead, or don't have toes) when they're growing 24/7?

<comment><USER14> Yea, exactly—you kind of answered your own question: I'm mortal. So like Bitcoin, there is a finite amount they will increase. That makes it a great investment opportunity, right?

<comment><USER16> And there are lots of alt-nails out there too.

The problem is that it's not trivial to distinguish between your bitnails and all the other altnails, so you have a massive counterfeiting problem the moment any real value gets attached to your bitnails.

(So, no, I won't be investing.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Equivocating over the technical definition of "money" won't obscure the plain fact that it's been out for a decade and you can't buy stuff with it.

More generally, the whole point of BTC was supposed to be that it would be free of external control. Now, everyone seems resigned to the fact that the only way to scale it is off-chain ledgers run by financial corporations. Doesn't seem to be much more to say about it.

<comment><USER18> I don't know about the rest of what you're saying, but I buy stuff with it. Have for the last decade or so...

Take that for what it's worth, but yeah, you're wrong.

<comment><USER17> "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

<comment><USER19> If you're going to reference the rules, you might put more effort into articulating the nuances rather than stating it as an absolute, as what you stated is clearly false.

<comment><USER17> Alice: "You can't buy stuff with it."

Bob: "That's technically false! The truth is you _mostly_ can't buy stuff with it."

Whatever; the point stands. Separate from that, you might put some thought in to why the HN guidelines say "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation" instead of "Please try to phrase your comments so carefully that there is only one possible interpretation."

<comment><USER19> This is, frankly, ridiculously dismissive, and you violated both guidelines.

If you've never heard of Bitpay, I'd suggest looking it up.

I can purchase software on Microsoft's store, hardware on Newegg, a phone line from AT&T, whatever from Overstock, I can travel via Expedia among other travel brokers, I mean seriously...

"You can't buy stuff with it" has no obvious interpretation. Did you mean specifically in some part of the world? Specifically from Amazon or Target?

<comment><USER17> I phrased it vaguely because I meant it that way. Is there one specific thing keeping Bitcoin from being widely used? No, there are a bunch of challenges. Why do you think I should've listed them? Don't you pretty much know what they are? Is it not safe to assume that the other people this deep in a HN thread on the subject do too?

Sure, I should've said, "...enough stuff" or "...easily enough" or some other minimizing qualifier, to keep uncharitable readers from mentally inserting a maximizing one. (I would've edited it in, but the edit button was already gone) But I also don't think anyone involved had any genuine trouble figuring out that it was implied. I mean, it's common enough to merit its own bullet point on the HN Guidelines list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's a pyramid scheme.

Blockchain as a technology isn't, although distributed ledgering isn't just blockchain. But Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme.

<comment><USER18> Bitcoin aside, for your own personal financial safety I recommend researching what a pyramid scheme is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> You know, if there's a ticker symbol at the top left of the article ... that's probably a vote for speculation.

</comment><comment><USER22> No. Please use Stellar/Lumens for that.

<comment><USER12> You mean use DAI for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I liked the idea of bitcoin for a while but I think it's pure garbage now. Not only because the blockchain technology has evolved a lot and you can make better networks with it, but because it's being used only to make very few people very rich.

There are others DLT (Distributed Ledger Technologies) far more advanced, with real life use cases and without that monstruosity called Proof of Work.

<comment><USER23> I forgot to add that using it as an asset is not the best idea. It has some nice features that makes it look good as a long term investment but it's heavily manipulated by big whales, mostly with Tether.

Sad but true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I may be wrong but I think it's too risky to put so much value into crypto currencies before we have a proof that P≠NP.

I also hope that P=NP.

<comment><USER25> Given how extremely useful public key technology is, I certainly hope that P ≠ NP (as well as the stronger BPP ≠ NP).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> None of the items in "Bitcoin's Advantages Over Traditional Money" are without significant caveats:

> Bitcoin's supply is limited to 21 million coins...

Until it's not. There are already discussions at the highest levels of the Bitcoin community to raise the cap[0].

Also what are forks and new coins if not new currency in circulation? The supply of "bitcoin" doubled when BCH forked. The supply doubled again when BSV forked.

> Low and predictable inflation rate.

See caveats above. Also the inflation rate has appeared to have 0 impact on the price of BTC so far, so it doesn't appear to be a meaningful metric. Payments for goods and services using BTC are almost always denominated in fiat with BTC being used as the medium of exchange (eg a seller wants $50 for some pills but accepts payment in $50 worth of BTC). BTC's inflation rate is meaningless in this scenario.

> Lack of a central authority. This makes Bitcoin resistant to censorship and > voluntary manipulation of its parameters.

This is arguably somewhat true. However, there are very few meaningfully sized Bitcoin miners, and it's not unreasonable to assume a single miner may have or be able to have >51% of the hashrate if they desired. The core development team is also fairly small with a relatively small number of people and organizations controlling what ships.

As for censorship: exchanges censor bitcoin addresses and manipulate (eg lose, socialize losses) balances all the time. As long as bitcoin is beholden to fiat for its value, it's far from censorship proof.

> Low transaction costs and acceptable processing speed.

"acceptable processing speed" is laughable from a retail transaction perspective.

"Low transaction cost" is arguably somewhat true, but there's also times of fee volatility as well as a times of high risk if you don't pay enough fees to get processed quickly. Resubmitting transactions with higher fees is possible but complex and imperfect.

> Security and irreversibility of transactions

"Security of transactions" is arguably true in the technical sense that the PKI protecting a transaction is so far unbreakable. However that's just one attack vector: it's untrue and meaningless for the vast majority of financial attack vectors. Sure double spends are exceptionally hard, but theft is rampant, loss due to technical error/bugs is common, and then irreversibility is a liability not an advantage.

[0] [https://twitter.com/mhluongo/status/1092559017178734594](https://twitter.com/mhluongo/status/1092559017178734594)

</comment><comment><USER27> By Betteridge's law of headlines: _No_.

<comment><USER23> I think that does work only with questions that require an affirmative or negative answer only.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to deploy a microservice architecture in a VM without root? - <AUTHOR> I am currently evaluating solutions for deploying microservices architecture in a virtual machine without having a root. Our architecture currently consists of:
- RabbitMQ
- PostgreSQL
- Golang services
- Python services
- Closure-based web dashboard
We can't use containers as their daemons usually require root access (e.g. Docker, LXD) - Are there any container technologies that would work on RHEL 6 without root?
Most promising solution so far seems to be to ship a chroot'ed environment, but that also requires a binary with root's setuid.
So how would you solve a problem of shipping and running pre-configured microservices architecture easily in a non-root environment? <comment><USER2> I think you could do perhaps something with conda if you felt like writing packages for all of these. Conda is cross-platform and can be installed without root, so it might work?</comment>


Middle East Coronavirus Called 'Threat To The Entire World' - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/05/29/187052727/middle-east-coronavirus-called-threat-to-the-entire-world <comment><USER2> Some of the comments on the page are kind of distasteful, the ones that seem to think that significant population reduction would be a boon to humanity. They aren't volunteering to go first, are they?</comment>


Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2 - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2017/12/13/accident-forgiveness-comes-to-gplv2/ <comment><USER2> Ok, I understand that this is trying to be decent and reasonable people here, in cases where it's truly an accident of including some GPL code. Shit happens, clean it up.

If I were to do this with commercial code or assets, would they be so flexible in working with me, or do they go straight to shakedown? I'll give ye all a hint: go look at the MPAA and RIAA's views on that.

I remembered when friends were back in the Napster times shook down for a few grand. Same with Bittorrent's earlier years. There was no amicable "Plz quit this and were good". In fact, they've lobbied multiple times for laws to permanently disconnect after X copyright claims.

So, why should the Open Source community be so damned forgiving when we're surrounded by entities who'd eat every last one of us for lunch if we so much as accidentally used a copyrighted resource?

(I'm thinking no further than Netflix ripping off a photographer [https://petapixel.com/2017/11/27/netflix-stole-vhs- cassette-...](https://petapixel.com/2017/11/27/netflix-stole-vhs-cassette- photos-stranger-things-boxed-set/) . Good luck for an Australian citizen to navigate international copyright law to become whole in this regard. )

<comment><USER3> > I remembered when friends were back in the Napster times shook down for a > few grand.

RIAA asked infringers for about $2 per infringed song. That seems a pretty fair price--it's only about twice what it would have cost for the people to legitimately purchase copies of the music.

<comment><USER4> Really? CNN said it was closer to $80,000 when the Napster cases were breaking.[1]

Maybe they offered $2/song for the settlement, but according to this article the settlement offer was $5000 for 24 songs. The 2009 article says the statutory penalties were between $750 and $150,000 per willful infringement. I don't know where you're getting $2 from.

[1]: [http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/19/downloading-mom- fine...](http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/19/downloading-mom- fined-80000-per-song/)

<comment><USER3> $2 or so (up to maybe $4 in some cases) per song is what they asked for when they sent an initial settlement offer to infringers, before taking any legal action.

If the person would not settle and the RIAA went on to actually sue the person, the RIAA would only sue over a small fraction of the infringed songs.

In the case the article you linked is talking about, they caught her infringing over 1700 songs, and asked for $5000. $5000/1700 = ~$3/song.

When she would not settle, and they sued, they sued over 24 songs. I don't think I've ever seen an official explanation of why they only sue for a handful of songs, but a couple plausible reasons come to mind:

1\. They will ask for statutory damages rather than actual damages [1]. Statutory damages are normally a minimum of $750 per infringed work, although that can be reduced to as low as $200 per infringed work if if the infringer was not aware and had not reason to be aware that they were infringing.

They only need 7 songs to win the amount they were willing to settle for when they sent their first letter, or 25 if they think there is any chance the defendant might get the reduced $200 rate.

2\. For each song they include in the lawsuit, they have to make sure all the paperwork is in order with the copyright office proving ownership. Copies of that have to be introduced into evidence at the trial.

The defense is going to attack every one of these. The defense is going to ask for all the contracts with the artist and try to prove that the RIAA does not have the right to represent them.

All of this takes time and costs money for no real gain.

In the particular case you cited, the damage award went way above the minimum largely because the defendant tried to destroy evidence, tried to blame her children for the copying, and blatantly lied on the stand. The jury has wide discretion to pick the statutory damage amount from a range, and they picked from the high end of the range.

And do you know what the RIAA did _after_ the jury awarded that large amount? They _again_ offered to settle for a relatively small amount. (I don't remember the exact amount--I think it was around $15000, which based on 1700 songs they caught her infringing would be around $9/song).

That's been the pattern for every RIAA case that went to trial, I believe. (Only a handful went to trial, because most infringers were smart enough to realize that (1) they had no defense, and (2) minimum statutory damages were going to be way more than the RIAA was asking for, and so they settled early).

[1] Actual damages are very hard to determine in most non-commercial copyright infringement cases (and actually they are often very hard to determine in commercial infringement cases, too).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For anyone wondering about the image in the header with a stylized Stallman as a Vishnu-like being, it's from Hackaday staff artist Joe Kim.

[http://theartofjoekim.tumblr.com/](http://theartofjoekim.tumblr.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Alternate title: doubling down on not just doing the right thing and using GPLv3.

<comment><USER7> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU) Torvalds on GPLv2 vs GPLv3

<comment><USER8> I found his arguments either dishonest or ignorant. He basically said "Look, I don't have an ideology to push, I chose the license because it served MY needs, FSF is pushing an ideology is GPLv3 and I don't like that.". However, he certainly has an ideology which I call "The roman conception of freedom". It is favored by laze-faire free market types. This is not an "ideology-free" argument.

He is pushing an ideology just as much as the FSF is. At least the FSF is honest and clear about what that ideology is.

<comment><USER9> Torvalds has always been very upfront that he doesn't care about software freedom. Note that choice of words very carefully: not "opposes" but "doesn't care about", one way or the other.

He has said from the beginning that the choice of GPL for Linux was a _technical_ one that he thinks produces the best code, and that the GPLv3 offered no technical gains and thus wasn't worth switching to. Presumably if he thought switching to a different license altogether produced better code, he'd do that.

Is not having an opinion on software freedom an ideology? I don't have an opinion on most political questions in, say, Mongolia. Does that give me a particular ideology on whatever political spectrum Mongolia has?

<comment><USER10> Also, Linux code is owned by whoever wrote it (or paid to have it written I guess), so it'd a major effort to try and change its license.

<comment><USER11> True, but Linux originally used the GPLv2, but IIRC never said anywhere whether it was GPLv2-only or GPLv2 or any later version, or just "GPL". According to the GPL, that means:

> If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may > choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.

So Linux could've theoretically upgraded to the GPLv3 (or GPLv2+). However, Linus didn't like that idea, and in 2006 edited the COPYING file to say that it was GPLv2-only. If you really wanted to, you could take the 2006 source code and make a GPLv3 fork of Linux.

<comment><USER12> > If you really wanted to, you could take the 2006 source code and make a > GPLv3 fork of Linux.

You certainly theoretically _could_ , but maintaining, updating, and modernizing such a beast would be out of the reach of most people and organizations. 11 years of progress can't be replicated so quickly, especially when you consider you'd need to do it in a clean-room sort of fashion to be entirely aboveboard, which means many people who are already well familiar with the Linux kernel couldn't even work on it.

At any rate, I think your estimate of the timing is off: I found references to the "GPLv2-only" language in the kernel's COPYING file as far back as linux-2.4.0-test8, which was released sometime in 2000, and I didn't really try to go farther back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Doesn't this clause seems not backwards compatible with GPLv2?

At face value GPLv3 seems more constrained - so it's easy to relicense an existing v2 project. You just tell everyone working on it, okay, now every addition we make has extra requirements (if you want the looser version, you can grab an older copy of our project from when we switched licenses)

Loosening the license on pre-existing code is sorta like if you wanted to make the project (like the Linux kernel) BSD. You'd have to have everyone who has already contributed to agree to loosen the license on their work. If one person thinks "Hell no! I want people to be severely punished" then you're in for a headache.

So then GPLv3 isn't a "superset" and compatible GPLv2? Or did am I misunderstanding something?

<comment> racer-v No, GPLv3 and v2 have always been incompatible. v2 forbids placing additional restrictions on distribution, whereas v3 adds more requirements (e.g. patent grants). So if you receive code under v2, you can't distribute it under v3, nor can you distribute v3 under v2, nor can you combine them.

[https://opensource.stackexchange.com/a/1778](https://opensource.stackexchange.com/a/1778)

</comment></comment><comment> racer-v The GPL ship has sailed. It used to be every free license could be converted to GPL, so it became the "universal recipient" license. Then Stallman forked it and created two incompatible GPL's, effectively killing his own dream of a copyleft ecosystem. So the only sane thing now is "universal donor" licenses like MIT - or straight public domain. I'm stealing all of this from Rob Landley.

[https://ia601008.us.archive.org/7/items/OhioLinuxfest2013/24...](https://ia601008.us.archive.org/7/items/OhioLinuxfest2013/24-Rob_Landley- The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Copyleft.mp3)

</comment><comment><USER14> The fun thing is that many projects are already GPLv2 or later.

</comment><comment><USER15> The funny thing is that gpl is mostly used by per profit companies creating a two licensing system. Gpl is great to test drive before buying a commercial license, but other than it's pretty much ignored except maybe in academia.

<comment><USER16> well, safari, chrome, osx, iphone, iPad, amazon, android, appletv, and a large number of routers and car systems all use gpl under that license singly. the fact that it's mostly due to linux and khtml seem unimportant when you say so much gpl is dual licensed ( all of those contain software that is gpl only) but, yes, dual licensing is popular too, ie the immense popularity of qt

<comment> racer-v Eh, what? Safari and Chrome are not GPL - they're Apple / Google freeware built on BSD and LGPL. OSX is proprietary based on BSD. Android is notable for refusing to include GPL components other than Linux. Not sure what you're trying to say here.</comment></comment></comment>


The land with no face masks - <AUTHOR> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8583925/The-land-no-face-masks-Hollands-scientists-say-theres-no-solid-evidence-coverings-work.html <comment><AUTHOR> Not the best source, but seemed interesting and worth a discussion.</comment>


Sites web developers and designers should know - <AUTHOR> http://www.catswhocode.com/blog/15-sites-web-developers-and-designers-should-know

<comment><USER2> Wow, great list. I'll definitely be using those sites.</comment>


Autocorrect in Google, Amazon and Pinterest and how to write your own one - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@gregdevogo/autocorrect-in-google-amazon-and-pinterest-and-how-to-write-your-own-one-6d23bc927c81 <comment><USER2> Nice material about What is this and How To write your own one</comment>


The Case Against Student Loans: Why Weak Students Should Pay More - <AUTHOR> https://www.newsweek.com/2018/07/27/students-loans-debt-college-weak-students-pay-more-rising-interest-rates-1027867.html <comment><USER2> Seems penalizing the student is the wrong way to go, rather I'd penalize the institution: e.g. if the institutions has a low graduation rate, and low post- graduation salaries that would be expensive, high graduation rate coupled with high post graduation salaries would garner a lower rate...

<comment><USER3> Agree. Unless I missed it, I didn't see the author acknowledge the huge leaps in tuition costs. Should be noted that the author is a Libertarian, so his range of solutions will (likely) be limited by that perspective.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Sighte – A minimalist Webkit2-based Browser - <AUTHOR> https://gitlab.com/ibiscybernetics/sighte <comment> git-pull Some screenshots and pre-built packages would be helpful. Even if it's for experts, having it available via a PPA (Ubuntu) or homebrew is excellent.

</comment><comment><USER2> Awesome, awesome. Really good to see a new full-featured browser coming to life, and not a Chromium modification with hardcoded ads.</comment>


Makefile and Docker = CI Pipeline - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rosineygp/mkdkr <comment><USER2> IMO the name "mkdkr" is too similar to "mkdir", and 'i' and 'k' are even right next to each other on a keyboard.

Also, the "Dot Functions" thing is... odd!</comment>


Asus says Nexus 7 sales are close to 1 million per month - <AUTHOR> http://www.slashgear.com/asus-says-nexus-7-sales-are-close-to-1-million-per-month-31254997/

<comment><USER2> Those sales, while not iPad league, aren't too shabby for a single Android device and, significantly, seem to be growing.

Will be interesting to see what the iPad Mini might do to Nexus 7 sales.

Certainly there are going to be a bunch of them that are people who specifically want an Android tablet, and there are going to be a bunch who are highly price sensitive (question there being are the newer Kindles having an impact) who aren't going to being looking at the new iPad, but there will also be people who just like the form factor for whom the Mini might be interesting.

Short term though I suspect we'll see what we've seen in the smartphone market - plenty of overall market growth meaning plenty of unit sales growth for everyone (except RIM) which will keep the market interesting.

<comment><USER3> I am looking to pick up a Nexus 7 this week to evaluate its gift potential. There are two areas where it falls behind the iPad mini for me. First is the Apple App store appears to be in much better shape. I can get around that pretty easily, the second is the lack of back facing camera.

The reason the second issue stands out is that I would like to gift these to my niece and nephew. When using my iPad or their parents smart phones they love to use the camera to take pictures. So I am was a bit disappointed over the omission.

The main point in the Nexus 7's favor for me is its price. So the make or break will be software, namely some learning apps and games.

I would prefer to avoid buying an Apple product; I own many; based on their emphasis on lawsuits recently but they do have some features on their tablet that are hard to pass up and the old adage reworded for our age probably holds true, no one will be disappointed getting an iPad for Christmas. (the old adage of no one was fired for buying IBM)

<comment><USER4> As someone who owns both an iPad and Nexus 7 - they're both great devices. But, if you're looking for "learning apps and games" - the iOS App Store wins, hands down. The Android store is definitely growing with respect to games... but I've found the quality of "learning" apps to be quite low on Android. I'm not sure why, and I'm sure it will get better.

If you're looking for "learning" apps for kids aged 2 - 14, I'd stick with iOS devices (for now).

<comment><USER5> Depends on the age. For ages 10+ the Android SDK is a pretty awesome "learning" app, and it's free.

<comment><USER2> The SDK is for Windows / Mac / Linux. Is he buying them a PC too?

<comment><USER5> If you really want something that only requires the device, the Android Scripting Environment is pretty awesome, and it comes with a dozen examples for things like controlling Android's speech synthesizer which a kid could have a lot of fun playing around with.

<http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/>

<comment><USER6> AIDE as well gives you a complete IDE on the device <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of my pet peeve's in articles like this is to change the metrics midway. Specifically, all Nexus references are made to monthly sales. So you see things like "600,000 per month" or "nearly 1 million per month"

Switch to Apple sales and it's "15 million in Q3" Holy smoke that's huge compared to Nexus!! Yet imagine another headline stating "Nexus taking nearly 20% of marketshare from Apple iPad!" 1 million per month and ramping = 3 million a quarter which is 20% of 15 million and so forth.

I have neither an iPad nor a Nexus 7 so no dog in this fight (MacBook Air and Nexus S phone) I just wanted to point out the annoyance when you use different measuring units within the one article. It can really distort the outlook.

Final note - more impressive to me than the total number sold is the ramp. This is significant month over month momentum since launching. I suspect the iPad Mini - now that the wait is over- will either a) drive sales higher based on the price/value differential or b) knee cap momentum. Based purely on a sample case of 1 (me) I held off the Nexus 7 until the iPad Mini arrived. The iOS and ecosystem still beats Android but based on the price differential I'll go with the Nexus 7 now. The gaps that exist between the two are continuing to close due to where both are in their respective life cycles.

<comment><USER8> That's why I always wait for <http://asymco.com> to do the math and fact-check the data and compile a pretty chart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> And with Nexus 10 looking pretty damn sweet, I guess 2012 can be declared the year when Android tablets finally took hold.

With all the wonderful things Android-phones has done for the general smart- phone, it was about time we had the same revolution happen in tablet-space.

<comment><USER2> You mean Android tablets other than the Fire which sold a boatload last year?

<comment><USER10> Are there any official sales figures on the Fire ?

<comment><USER2> No, but estimates put the number as high as 5 million in 2011 alone.

But neither Amazon nor Google report specific sales numbers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm always slightly curious about these when they appear, when they say they're selling X amount per month, do they mean they've sold X amount per month that are in consumers hands, or X amount per month where so many are in consumer hands, so many are in retail supply chains? Same goes for Apple, but to a larger extent they manage sales through their own channels.

Obviously N7 is delayed shipment in many places so I imagine a lot are in peoples hands, still curious.

<comment><USER12> Do you think Retailers are stocking up on phones that aren't selling? That each month, fifty thousand electronic devices are stored in stockrooms, never to be seen again?

The units sold to consumers closely resembles the tail of current shipped units, just delayed a bit; the larger the number and the bigger ticket the item the closer those curves are.

<comment><USER13> It's a fair question, as channel stuffing is not unheard of. The HP TouchPad, for instance, shipped far more units than were sold to customers. At one point Best Buy sat on over 200 000 unsold TouchPads that were returned to HP and eventually priced at just $99 each to get rid of the inventory.

With that said, I think the correlation between shipping numbers and sales for the Nexus 4 is probably close, considering the clear demand for the phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great news for Google, except the hardware quality doth suffer. I had to RMA my first one, as the audio jack was spotty and only outputted one channel. The second one arrived with exactly the same issue and a screen that wobbled. RMA'd that one to get a third one, and saw that it was one of the early batches that had a ton of issues and I didn't bother keeping it to find out what was wrong with it.

So Google, if it has any hopes for displacing iPad, needs to clamp down on quality issues with its suppliers and make sure that these products match up to the incumbents they are hell bent on displacing.

<comment><USER15> The quality issues really fall on Asus, not Google. Asus is the hardware manufacturer.

Besides that, I agree. My first Nexus 7 had the "wobbly" screen, but only on the left-hand side, about mid-ways up.

<comment><USER16> The issues do lie with Asus, but your average consumer isn't going to make that distinction. All they see is Google/Nexus branding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> They aren't keeping up with demand. Eg. in Finland they've been constantly sold out since it launched a few weeks ago (same time with Scandinavia). The 16GB version is 269.90 EUR / 350.68 USD, and doesn't include the $25 Play voucher, the 8GB version is not sold here at all.

I suspect there is one set of primary-market/trend-setter countries where Google is selling it with near-zero margins and has first cut of shipments, and then the rest of the world where Asus sells it through their retailers and collects a lucrative profit margin.

<comment><USER18> Has Nexus 7 actually officially launched in Finland? It isn't mentioned in the Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus_7>

<comment><USER19> Austria was not mentioned on Wikipedia as well, but it is sold here since September. Being a good Wikipedian, I added the release date to the site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Doesn't surprise me. They got there (the 7 inch space that I'm confident Apple always had their eyes on in their roadmap), before Apple, with a competent device and great hardware.

And I mean, really great hardware... The rubberized backing but still has nice proportions for everything else, makes it akin to the equal and opposite to the latest iPhone. Both awesome hardware designs in their own right.

I think the Nexus 7 bests the iPad Mini in hardware design, whilst the iPad 4 still trounces the ugly Nexus 10.

<comment><USER21> Have you actually seen a Nexus 10 in person? Early reviews are praising the Nexus 10 hardware design, claiming that it's much easier to hold one handed than the iPad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The article raises a good point. Should we compare this to the iPad? (iPad 3?) It's a different size and price point. The Kindle Fire is the only other tablet with as high a profile as the Nexus 7, and we don't have sales numbers on that, either (which makes me wonder how they know the total number of tablets).

I'm glad it's been successful as I'm quite pleased with mine, but I'm not sure this announcement tells us anything at all (even if it had clear numbers).

</comment><comment><USER23> It's a great device. It's nice to see Google (and Asus) being rewarded for it.

</comment><comment><USER24> Let's not forget all of these N7s come with a $25 Play credit. This is great for Android devs. We've seen a big increase in sales since it went on sale this summer.

</comment><comment><USER25> If anyone in the UK is after one, eBuyer are currently doing a pretty nice deal; 32GB Nexus 7 for £200 (RRP of the 16GB I think): [http://www.ebuyer.com/398430-asus-google-nexus-7-32gb- tablet...](http://www.ebuyer.com/398430-asus-google-nexus-7-32gb-tablet- pc-90ok0mi1101090u)

</comment><comment><USER26> Does that include the replacements and repairs, because I have had a 'new' nexus 4 times now.

<comment><USER27> My friend had his Nexus 7 in his pocket (as he always had done) and just the process of sitting on the couch caused enough pressure to destroy the screen.

Google / ASUS provided no support and he just went and bought a whole new device (he was told the price of repair was basically the same as replacement).

Unlike most of the devices I've seen when the screen was cracked (really just a hairline crack across the face), it became completely unusable.

<comment><USER26> Yeah I have had that experience about 4 times now, like you said, when cracked its completely useless. I broke the first one by sitting the device on the top of a stack of books and research material and then proceeding to pick that bundle up. My thumb holding the nexus 7 and that was enough to put a split from corner to corner. I have given up on the device and Android. I went back to using my old ipad 1 which has been dropped and thrown about for 2-3 years now and not even a scratch or buff on the back and certainly no cracks or chips on the screen. I made the mistake of getting a nexus 7 for my brother and both parents and they have ALL had problems with it (each was about £209 in the UK). They are all getting ipads now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Note that selling 1 million a month is obviously great for Android, but it's not even close to the same as say selling 1 million Galaxy S3's per month. Asus and Google have both basically said that they are selling the Nexus 7 at break even or a small loss. Google pretty much has to do this, but it's not exactly helping their bottom line in the same way that Apple selling 1 million iPad Mini's helps Apple's bottom line. At $130 profit per device (which is probably a bit low) Apple would profit $1.56 billion per year with the same sales volume, vs basically $0 per year for Google/Asus.

It might not be all about profit for everybody, but $1.56 billion buys a lot of R&D, advanced manufacturing, etc. which puts Apple in an even better strategic position on both the product and operations side of the business, which continues to drive profit.

<comment><USER29> As long as Google remains a healthy giant company profits should not matter to anyone except Google and Apple investors. For everybody else this is great news. For android developers and users it means that there is more incentive for making tablet apps. For Apple and Amazon users it means that there is serious competition which should mean lower prices and continued innovation going forward.

<comment><USER30> But it also means that the users will be disproportionately price sensitive.

Which as a developer means your options are limited about what price you can charge for your app and hence what type of app you can build.

<comment><USER6> Elitism much? What next? Let's target only white people. No, just males! They earn more on average than woman!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> There is probably a bottleneck in sales, too, because Nexus 7 is only available for sale in like under 10 countries, while the iPad is available in many more.</comment>


Git best practices to speed up code reviews (and make you a better team player) - <AUTHOR> http://www.midori-global.com/blog/2018/03/21/5-ways-to-speed-up-code-reviews-with-git-mercurial-and-subversion <comment><USER2> The best solution for speeding up code reviews is to not do them at all.

Have tests, have a ci system and pipelines, empower the team to deploy and rollback (especially non-technical folks). Any green build should be deployable by your PM or whoever. If your system does not support frequent change and encourage shared ownership of the code then fix your system.

If you really want to get "drastic" encourage or mandate your programmers to pair and encourage frequent pair rotation.

We run into this over and over again with clients who cling to the PR process and inevitable we burry them in PR and progress grinds to a halt compared to other projects that get on board with above.</comment>


Ask HN: GDPR compliance for a systems-oriented SaaS - <AUTHOR> I have a SaaS product that does not deal with personal data, it's a systems monitoring service. However there are a few types of potentially personal data it has to collect:
* user email addresses (for signing in, and for password reset links)
* optionally, billing address
* it uses a third party service for recurring payments (Braintree). My service does not store users' credit card details but Braintree of course has to
The service does not use any analytics scripts. It currently only has generic Terms of Service and Privacy Policy documents, generated online by answering yes/no questions and paying $20 or so for each.
For a SaaS service like mine, what are the minimum required things to be GDPR compliant? Are there walkthroughs, templates or recommended services for preparing GDPR-related documentation?
I'm sure many SaaS tools / services are in similar situation as mine, and I'm sure many have already figured this out. Looking for friendly advice! <comment><USER2> Email address + billing address is personal data.

The minimum requirements for SaaS would be:

\- Having a Privacy Policy. Among other things, specific identify the Data Controller (you), inform users of their rights (there are 8 rights under GDPR), whether you transfer data internationally (EU>US), and others.

\- Getting active consent from users. Under GDPR, you must request a "clear, unambiguous affirmative consent" from users. The "clickwrap" method of design might be good to follow.

We shared a quick "GPDR Compliance Plan" video on YouTube a while ago that might be useful: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2F9HEhTpSg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2F9HEhTpSg)

</comment><comment><USER3> can you let us know where you were able to generate that tod and privscy policy? thank you</comment>


Windows 10 Bleeds Users While Ubuntu Linux Enjoys an Astonishing Increase - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2020/05/06/windows-10-is-bleeding-users-while-ubuntu-linux-enjoys-an-astonishing-increase/#5260ce1d3ccd <comment><USER2> This is about usage, right? Not new installs.

Still, it wouldn't surprise me of Linux installs were also on the rise. I got a new PC 2 years ago and installed Windows 10 on it, and it was fine. Kept pushing me to create an online Microsoft account I didn't want, but once I got past that horror, it was okay. It was mostly for games anyway.

This autumn, I got a new laptop to replace my aging Macbook, and decided on a Thinkpad. I got it with Win 10, which I expected to be okay. Now I suddenly need to pick 3 insecurity questions so people can bypass my password. No way to prevent that. Tons of stuff is impossible to find. The whole experience for anything that's not gaming, is just terrible.

Was it a fluke? I recently got my son a laptop for school, and I don't know why they keep making it worse, but that OS is an abomination. I was finally ready to leave Apple, and now I'm ready to get back again.

But first I'm going to install Linux on everything.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just left Ubuntu for Chrome OS on a Pixelbook Go. Pretty happy so far, just can't get my nerd fonts working for vim.

Battery life seems way better and I can do all the Dev stuff I normally do with kubernetes and containers. Touch and UI is far superior

</comment><comment><USER4> Discussed here four days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23115629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23115629)

</comment><comment><USER5> This is interesting as long as the "astonishing increase" isn't just all the cloud vm's updating to 20.04 server.</comment>