vuze just asked me for money

[Darxus]

Binary package hint: azureus

Can we remove this feature?

Screenshot attached.

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 9.04
Release: 9.04

$ apt-cache policy azureus
azureus:
  Installed: 4.2.0.8-1

[Darxus (darxus)]

When I click "I do not want to donate at this time" and then "Continue" I get another dialogging complaining about me not donating and saying how much work has been put into azureus, and then forcing me into the search feature to load their ads. There is no way to get out of this dialog without going into the ads. Another screenshot attached.

Can we remove the ads too?

[Darxus (darxus)]

The second dialog goes away only when you click "X Close". Clicking the big "Search Now" button doesn't even make it go away.

[Darxus (darxus)]

The package seems to be lacking license information, but the upstream tarball says "The Vuze Application itself is provided to You under the terms of Version 2 of the GNU GPL."

[Darxus (darxus)]

Looks like the popup asking for money can be disabled by inserting a return() at the top of checkForDonationPopup() in
http://azureus.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/azureus/azureus2/org/gudy/azureus2/ui/swt/donations/DonationWindow.java

Or perhaps commenting stuff out in the vicinity of:

 DonationWindow.setInitialAskHours(MapUtils.getMapInt(map,
                                 "donations.askhrs", DonationWindow.getInitialAskHours()));

in: http://azureus.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/azureus/azureus2/org/gudy/azureus2/ui/swt/mainwindow/MainWindow.java

[John Dong (jdong)]

Wow, that's definitely quite an attempt to nag... I have no hesitation to remove it; I think your first method of removing the contents of the checkForDonationPopup method will be the more appropriate method.

Would you like to do the honors of preparing a debdiff for that which I could sponsor into Karmic (We'll handle Jaunty as a SRU when Karmic is fixed)?

If not I'd be happy to do it too.

[Darxus (darxus)]

Thank you. Yes, I would like to attempt a debdiff. If you don't hear back from me in 24 hours assume I'm dead and run with it.

[Darxus (darxus)]

Removed contents of checkForDonationPopup().
John: Thanks for your help.

[John Dong (jdong)]

Thanks for the quick turnaround, Darxus.

One nitpick: The Azureus package uses the Quilt patch management system to patch the source; can you revise your debdiff to utilize the patchsys too? Doing so makes future updating to the package easier for everyone.

Thanks

[Adrian Perez (adrianperez-deb)]

Well, I strongly suggest to not change this behaviour as many open source programs use this mechanism of donation. Would you prefer it shareware? Azureus is licensed under the GPL, the GPL stands that you could even sell your software so I don't see a problem with this window. It's a way for people to contribute to the effort that the programmers are taken into build the software you are merely using. They're doing a great work and I think they work should have a profit, so preventing all ubuntu users from donating to the azureus team doesn't seem a good idea to me. Also, I'm not a lawyer but that's my personal preference.

In the case you decide to go ahead and disabling the behaviour (I won't adopt such a radical solution in debian, I'm contacting upstream to make timing more slow aka don't show it that often), I think removing code is not the best idea for a patch. Thanks for your contribution, but I think the attached one is cleaner.

[Onkar Shinde (onkarshinde)]

I agree with Adrian here. The donation window may be nagging but it is possible to ignore it by closing it.
The license of the program does not prohibit request for donation. And the existence of the application may well be depending on donated money. We should not do a dis-service to the developers by disabling this dialog.

We should find a better solution in collaboration with upstream. May be a preference 'don't ask me for donation' would be good.

[Darxus (darxus)]

In an old version of this dialog there was an "I've already donated." option which disabled it. I agree with Onkar's suggestion of an option along the lines of "I don't ever want to donate." How about asking upstream for a "I don't ever want to donate." option, possibly removing the dialog until we get it?

I agree the dialog doesn't conflict with the GPL. And I have no objection to Adrian's patch.

[John Dong (jdong)]

I also agree with Adrian here; that's a more reasonable compromise between the two extremes.

[Adrian Perez (adrianperez-deb)]

I'm happy to see we came into the same conclusions:
There's no rush to patching the code when there might be better
alternatives; and there's nothing wrong with GPL and donation windows,
GPL is about freedom not about money. And finally, there's no need to
dis-service the users or the team, as Onkar pointed.

So I've spent the afternoon having a nice talk with Nolar and The_8472,
which came to good results -from their side, at the moment.

First, they eventually will provide the means for the user to disable
this notification window, so users that - as in your case-, are annoyed
by it's presence have the option to get rid of that.
The UI interface will provide then the functionality for those who
change their minds later.

Secondly, which was my strong point, they'll extend the timing among the
window is shown, so there will be more extensive time, so users won't
even remember the last time it appeared, in Nolar words.

So, for a workaround (bencode was another topic too) you could always
open the ~/.azureus/azureus.config file and search for the line:

> :donations.donatedi0e

and replace that by:

> :donations.donatedi1e

This should have the same effect that the patch that I posted before,
without messing with the code - there's no need to, now that upstream is
aware.

So my position here is to drop both patches and favor the workaround
until a fix is released, I hope you agree.

If there are any other questions, I'd be willing to answer.
--
Best regards,
Adrian Perez <email address hidden>

[Darxus (darxus)]

I agree, thank you.

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

I don't see this a meriting an SRU. While annoying (and I would discourage such a practice in Free software) there is no actual policy against it. "Annoys the users" isn't in the SRU criteria.

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

I've sent them money before. They have the neatest bit-torrent client, and I don't mind rewarding them for their work when I'm able to.

However, I can see how this could be a slippery slope. If every application overtly did this, it would get annoying.

I think each GUI app on Ubuntu, should have a "donate" item in the help menu "standard". Most people won't even think to donate unless that run across it (at least some non-intrusive way).

[Darxus (darxus)]

The gui apps that you see probably represent a small portion of the effort put into building the system you're using.

[Izkata (izkata)]

A passive menu item is probably the best choice. Nag windows make me highly averse to ever donating, whether or not I'd considered it previously.

[Javier Moreno (elpasmo)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. However, according to this report, you are not using the most recent version of this package for your Ubuntu release. Please upgrade to the most recent version and let us know if you are still having this issue. Thanks in advance.

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

Please don't randomly mark confirmed bugs incomplete. This is an easy enough bug to confirm. At least try to check it yourself first.

[Javier Moreno (elpasmo)]

I'm sorry Scott. But I use vuze and I remember in the past that annoying windows poping up frequently asking me money. Now it has been a while since I didn't see it anymore. So it was not a random change. So is it currently poping up?

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

I didn't realize you'd tried and been unable to replicate it in a later version. The change in status is appropriate then.

[Darxus (darxus)]

ElPasmo, you probably haven't seen it because you disabled it and forgot how disabling actually works, just like I did. Did you actually try to replicate it? By wiping (or renaming) your ~/.azureus directory?

[Javier Moreno (elpasmo)]

No, I can assure you I've never disable it. Is it currently annoying you?

[Darxus (darxus)]

It's not currently annoying me because I disabled it.

[Darxus (darxus)]

Yup, it's still there. 1.2 years later and they still haven't added that option to say I don't want to give them any money.

Can we now disable that damn thing until they add that option they said they would?

$ apt-cache policy azureus
azureus:
  Installed: 4.3.0.6-1

[Darxus (darxus)]

I noticed that they do actually have a "No thanks." thing you can click HIDDEN in the upper right hand corner. And it does *not* replace ":donations.donatedi0e" with ":donations.donatedi1e" in the config file to end the nagging.

So I'm proposing disabling the nagging with a patch similar to what Adrian Perez wrote over a year ago until they have an option just as obvious as the others along the lines of "I don't ever want to donate." which permanently disables the nagging.

[Javier Moreno (elpasmo)]

Thank you for all the testing you are doing. Changelog of version 4.4.0.0 reports a fix of a rare case where Donation window is popping up too often. So it seems that the updated version of Vuze (4.5.1.0) has corrected this issue. I'll be testing this version all day long. But I was not able to reproduce this issue in previous versions. So, can you install lastest software from http://www.vuze.com/download and test it?

In case is corrected we should ask for a sync to the newest version in debian. If is still present this issue we should open an upstream bug...

[Darxus (darxus)]

Even if that dialog isn't popping up as often, I really think it needs to be changed so it is not as difficult as possible to figure out how to say "no thanks". In addition to being so far from looking like one of the options, it's hidden in the part of a window I believe people are statistically least likely to look at, from google's research (upper right corner). But I think it would be better if there was also an option to permanently disable that dialog by saying "I don't ever want to donate."

And I think we should disable that dialog with the one line of code Adrian Perez wrote until that dialog is not so skeevy (boolean alreadyDonated = true;).

This is really user hostile behavior which we can very easily fix.

[Javier Moreno (elpasmo)]

I agree with you that they should provide a way of stop popping up, like a button or option that users can choose. But I don't know if latest releases show this button or not. I have last vuze installed and I'm waiting for this dialog to popup. In case that the announce doesn't provide a clear way of disable it once for all, I suggest to fill an Upstream form requesting this feature.

I'm not agree of aplying a patch, I'm with Adrian and Onkar in this. I think that'd be very aggresive.

Do you know any way of provoking the dialog to show? Are you agree of filing an Upstream request asking for an option to disable this popup?

[Darxus (darxus)]

My concern is that some (hopefully small) percentage of users will see no way to get past that dialog without donating. And worse, they will then assume that everybody else who uses it must donate. And that, combined with the fact that Ubuntu provides the package, will cause them to think it's reasonable to give them money.

It's a scam.

And I think it's entirely within the responsibility of ubuntu to protect users from it.

Honestly, yes, to the current situation, I would prefer that azureus be licensed as shareware, and not included in the Ubuntu repositories.

That dialog has existed for years. There is no way they have removed it. And even if they have removed it, patching azuerus to not display the dialog would have no effect.

I think the dialog should be disabled in the Ubuntu package now, and a bug filed against upstream requesting an obvious "I don't ever want to donate." option permanently disabling the dialog. And when that option is available, the dialog should be re-enabled in the Ubuntu package.

This bug is over a year old. When azureus finally got around to addressing it at all, they did so in as misleading a way as they possibly could.

[Javier Moreno (elpasmo)]

http://wiki.vuze.com/w/Vuze_Is_Free

"As of Vuze version 4.4, there is a legitimate paid edition of the client, called Vuze Plus."

I think is mandatory to test the latest version. I'm testing the latest CVS version for 4 days now and I couldn't see if the popup is still present or if it has improved its interface.

I'll continue testing it. But until we have confirmation the issue is still present in the lastest version I think this bug should be set to Incomplete. Also, I made a sync request in Debian that can solve this issue if it's corrected in Vuze lastest release: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=607742

I'm not agree that it's a scam, you can always close the window, say "No thanks" or even minimize it and continue working. When there was a bug that make that popup show itself very often I could be agree it was very annoying. But right now I can't even see it for 4 days in a row. If it's still present, and if it doesnt present a clear way to cease showing itself once for all... I think we must make an upstream request. But for that, we must test it in the lastest release.

[Darxus (darxus)]

That dialog just popped up again.

The "X" to close the window doesn't work.

[Javier Moreno (elpasmo)]

Wich version of Vuze were you running?

[Darxus (darxus)]

Still the version in maverick, 4.3.0.6-1.

[Darxus (darxus)]

Just got the popup again, in the version in maverick (4.3.0.6-1), so once every 15 days here.