Comment 11 for bug 1358294

Revision history for this message
Jamie Strandboge (jdstrand) wrote : Re: App .config not removed when app uninstalled

John Lea's update to the bug description does not match Michał's comment #9. Specifically, "100% of files associated with the app should be deleted" sounds like the user's data files will be removed. We cannot assume that the app will store its data in the cloud somewhere. I mentioned videos, pictures and music in a previous comment and this was addressed with the concession that core apps can't be removed. However, we can expect alternatives to these core apps in the app store, or apps that are different from the core apps with overlapping functionality. Ubuntu does not currently have a backup solution for the phone and people make mistakes-- as a user I would be livid if I or a child I let use the phone accidentally removed an application containing unreproducible personal, aka precious, data. The mental model may be simple that if you remove an app, you remove all of its data-- the problem is, this model is contrary to what is done in Ubuntu now. Uninstall is different than delete. If I uninstall libreoffice, I don't expect my Documents folder to be wiped. This simple mental model may only be fully understood after the user uninstalls an app and loses unrecoverable data. We can't just delete people's data.

Implementation-wise, the security team's concerns still stand regarding the dangers of automatically deleting user data and would like to be involved in the review process.