[RaleyField]

> want to be in control of their data and devices,

The other day there was a thread on HN about which laptop is great for Linux. Tons of people recommended Lenovo, a guy from Redhat said it's even the brand that's used internally and I got a little depressed and smh. Nobody mentioned superfish. Those glorious days of Linux are gone.

[vetinari]

Redhat internally uses Thinkpads.

Superfish was on Ideapads, and it was bundled Windows software.

While both are by Lenovo, they are separate product lines.

[antisemiotic]

"We are a totally trustworthy company, we screw only some of our customers."

[vetinari]

In that segment? I would wonder something is wrong, if they didn't.

Ideapads are in market segment, that is extremely price sensitive, but not quality-sensitive. If the competition would cost 10 bucks less, it would be a huge win for them, so everyone tries to minimize price while preserving margins as much as possible.

In the end, these devices do ship with Windows, which has privacy problems anyway.

All this is moot, when you put Linux on it, which was the context we were talking about.

[RaleyField]

> In the end, these devices do ship with Windows, which has privacy problems anyway.

It does, but those are "theoretical" in comparison to the degree Lenovo stooped on, it doesn't excuse Superfish at all. Windows isn't a free for all platform, yet.

> All this is moot, when you put Linux on it, which was the context we were talking about.

_That_ time. I'll copy a response I provided two months ago as Lenovo on HN has become a seriously annoying groundhog day for me:

I can't know that whatever harmful and irrational environment that led to Superfish in IdeaPad won't affect ThinkPads in the future. Even in the most generous understanding where IdeaPad is a different, physically separate branch of the company, and Superfish was an act of incompetence and not outright malice I can't be expected to keep up with the insider intrigue of the company to notice any changes that could negatively affect me. More importantly, leadership is still responsible for setting irrational environment that lead to Superfish, whatever that environment was. This is a multi-billion dollar company, there is no excuse for such incompetence.

[vetinari]

Every single company did stupid things in the past (not just CE/ITC companies; but the builder that built your house too, for example). You can be outraged by many things all of them did. By choosing, what you are or are not outraged, you are just rationalizing your preferences.

Was superfish stupid mistake? Yes, it was. Does it mean you should condemn the company for the rest of eternity? Probably not.

[RaleyField]

> Every single company did stupid things in the past

Perhaps there is some boundary that shouldn't be crossed. You seem to be arguing there isn't.

Perhaps global and successful companies should exercise some due diligence and have a department that would control quality and firewall wacky ideas.

Perhaps we as CEs should hold companies responsible so that they stop perpetuating never ending shenanigans that this industry is known for. If even we don't boycott bad actors how can we expect normal users to do it.

> Does it mean you should condemn the company for the rest of eternity? Probably not.

If they showed some contrition perhaps? Name and fire entire chain of people responsible for it and donate a year of their net income to foreign FOSS organizations - in ideal world the company should've gone bankrupt, so the penance should be hard. Then I'd be more ready to believe them they would do better in the future.

[antisemiotic]

To each his own, in my opinion consumer market for laptops being a trash fire doesn't excuse putting malware on them.

[vetinari]

Yes, it was stupid. Should that mean you are never going to buy thinkpad again? Probably not.