[Thunar-dev] Violation of EU Regulation by gvfs

[Auke Kok]

This thread is completely bullocks, please don't send this type of stuff 
to this list:

1) the EU regulations are not in effect outside of the EU, so Xfce has 
all the rights they have to distribute software which might violate EU 
regulations, if the intended target isn't specifically the EU (Like the 
other 5.6 billion people in the world).

2) The EU regulations apply to "devices". This law only therefore is
applicable to people who distribute "devices". "Software" distributors 
may be asked by "device" distributors to comply, but that's about it.

3) Nothing forces anybody to spin down drives if the drives consume less
power than the EU regulations require (yes, I read the entire german 
article).

4) This is an issue that should be solved in the gvfs project. Proposing 
to drop gvfs entirely is so incredibly out of proportion that your 
message only makes things worse.

5) You can patch gvfs yourself, it's open source, dammit.

6) Xfce is WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. Please read the copyright 
message in every file/project. Nothing in Xfce says that it's intended 
to comply with any legal regulation.

7) Every user has the legal right to run Xfce or any of their own 
software, including software that violates EU regulations, because those 
regulations generally only apply to commercial distributors, and not 
people tinkering with their own systems. This is commonly legally put 
under "educational" use.

... I could go on like this for a while ...

If you want to make some progress to actually fixing the problem, do it 
the right way and don't throw around bogus legal threats, please.

1) file a performance/power consumption bug directly against the gvfs 
project upstream
2) do not mention local regulations or stupid legalities that you do not 
understand, instead say "we could save power"
3a) fix it yourself or
3b) get someone to fix it for you


Regards,

Auke


On 03/19/2013 08:45 AM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> Hi :)
>
> there's an issue with gvsf ¹. It should be fixed or replaced with code
> that doesn't violate the EU Regulations.
>
> I won't report it to GNOME, since I switched from GNOME to Xfce a long
> time ago to get rid of GNOME issues ;).
>
> Regarding to this urgent issue I already subscribed to this list before
> I was asked to report it upstream, but such a validation can't harm ².
>
> Regards,
> Ralf
>
>
>
>
>
> ¹
> From: Ralf Mardorf
> To: General Discussion about Arch Linux
> Subject: EU Regulation and gvfs
> Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:11:47 +0100
>
> Hi,
>
> there's an issue with gvfs.
>
> Regarding to an EU Regulation external drives must spin down after a
> while, but gvfs make external drives spin up and down again and again so
> they don't stay asleep.
>
> I own a new WD Elements and within one week it aged by years.
>
> I marked a thread about this issue as solved, but it isn't, it's just a
> workaround. For some drives it's possible to disable it, but for drives
> where you can't open the case it can be impossible to do it.
>
> One way to safe lifetime then is to touch the drive in short intervals,
> to avoid a spin down and the other way is to remove gvfs and to mount
> block devices, not only USB devices, by a workaround.
>
> Other USB gear, but block devices, don't need gvfs, such as WiFi
> adapters.
>
> Since I'm short in time at the moment, I only tested Arch Linux and
> Ubuntu Linux intensively [1].
>
> I'm cross-posting this information, hopefully you understand why I'm
> doing this.
>
> Regards,
> Ralf
>
> [1]
> From: Ralf Mardorf
> To: linux-audio-user
> Subject: [solved] External USB 2 HD for real-time recording
> Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2013 08:43:57 +0100
>
> On Mon, 2013-03-18 at 18:12 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
>> The issue that the drive will spin up and down again and again can be
>> avoided.
>>
>> I removed
>>
>> - thunar-volman
>> - tumbler
>> - gvfs
>>
>> on Arch Linux. No packages depend on those packages for my Arch Linux.
>> The drive keeps asleep, even with still one partition mounted.
>> Later I'll add one package after the other, to find out what does cause
>> the access and I also will take a look at Ubuntu.
>
> Arch Linux:
>
> Only gvfs needs to be removed, no need to remove thunar-volman and
> tumbler. However, thunar-volman without gvfs seems to be useless.
> Tumbler doesn't cause issues, but I don't know what it's good for. To
> see thumbnails with Thunar it isn't needed.
>
> I keep thunar-volman and tumbler on Arch and only removed gvfs. For my
> Arch nothing depends on gvfs, so it was the only package I had to remove.
>
>
>
> Ubuntu Quantal:
>
> root at q:~# apt-get purge gvfs
> The following packages will be REMOVED:
>    brasero* gvfs* gvfs-backends* gvfs-fuse* nautilus* nautilus-sendto*
> nautilus-share*
>
> Who cares about the packages that depend on it? I anyway use Thunar
> instead of Nautilus and K3b instead of Brasero.
>
>
>
> Résumé:
>
> So who is to blame?
>
>
> By EU Regulation external drives must spin down.
>
> I even didn't completely read the German blah blah blah,
> http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Ab-2010-Maximal-2-Watt-im-Standby-Betrieb-von-Haushaltsgeraeten-PCs-und-Unterhaltungselektronik-Update-193947.html
> and I won't search for links in English.
>
> Xfce doesn't depend on gvfs, neither the Arch, nor the Ubuntu packages.
> Until now it seems to be, that without gvfs, partitions can't be mounted
> with a file browser, they have to be mounted by CLI. It's not only an
> issue for the USB drive, but also for USB sticks.
>
> It takes 30 minutes, then the WD Elements spins down and stays asleep.
> If you don't like this,than blame the EU.
> If you like it, then blame gvfs.
>
> Does VirtualBox still see my iPad 2 connected by USB when gvfs is
> removed?
>
> No problem, even an USB stick and even the
> external USB hard disk are available by VirtualBox.
>
>
> Is my KORG nanoKONTROL still accessible after removing gvfs?
>
> It still does show up in QjackCtl's ALSA tab.
>
>
>
>
>
> ²
> From: arch-general-owner
> Subject: Request to mailing list arch-general rejected
> Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2013 08:05:06 -0400
>
> Your request to the arch-general mailing list
>
>      Posting of your message titled "EU Regulation and gvfs"
>
> has been rejected by the list moderator.  The moderator gave the
> following reason for rejecting your request:
>
> "There is nothing we can do about this here. Please report that issue
> upstream. Cheers. [snip]
>
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