[Thunar-dev] Violation of EU Regulation by gvfs

[Ralf Mardorf]

Hi :)

there's an issue with gvsf ?. 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 ?.

Regards,
Ralf





?
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

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.



R?sum?:

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.





?
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]

[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

Post by Ralf Mardorf
Hi :)
there's an issue with gvsf ?. 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 ?.
Regards,
Ralf
?
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

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.

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.
root at q:~# apt-get purge gvfs
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.
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.
?
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
"There is nothing we can do about this here. Please report that issue
upstream. Cheers. [snip]
_______________________________________________
Thunar-dev mailing list
Thunar-dev at xfce.org
https://mail.xfce.org/mailman/listinfo/thunar-dev

[Ralf Mardorf]

Post by Auke Kok
This thread is completely bullocks, please don't send this type of stuff
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

Hi Auke,

reconsider that the drives of many Linux users already failed and just a
minority is able to fix the issue them self.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Advanced_Format#Special_Consideration_for_WD_Green_HDDs

Thank you, for the good atmosphere for reporting an issue.

Regards,
Ralf

[Ralf Mardorf]

PS:

Note that it's not an issue for me. I'm reporting it, because it's an
issue for inexperienced users. Btw. some folks from the Linux community
want that Linux goes mass market.

If somebody wants to reply, please cc me, since I unsubscribe.

[Ralf Mardorf]

My apologise, PPS:

https://bbs.archlinux.de/viewtopic.php?pid=301295#p301295