_euvw

Or: the market does not (always) work. This too is an option.

On a fresh Android, at first boot, it will ask you if you want to sync stuff. I always choose 'no'.

I then proceed onto the settings app, into 'accounts'. There, I tap 'Google' and lo and behold: App-data, Calendar, Contacts, Google Fit Data and People details are all ticked to sync.

I turn them off.

Then I open the default browser. It logs me into Google, by default. I have to explicitly tell it not to.

Google really really wants users to be logged in. That is my experience anyway.

My respons to the 'nothing to hide' argument is: "Why are you so scared of things that are hidden?"

That puts them on the defensive. Since now they have to justify their fear for the unknown. And then we're onto the real topic: fear.

You are correct on all points concerning the quality of code of Alpine Linux. I do not doubt it. But it is irrelevant to the discussion. The Linux kernel is not part of the containers that are based off of Alpine. That is the whole point of this level of virtualization: sharing the kernel.

Furthermore, the problem I have with Alpine-based containers is that using those as the basis of tooling used for building your own product, your own product will have a hard time becoming maintainable, sustainable an secure.

I've had developers doing make; make install in Dockerfiles just because Alpine doesn't have some library or version packaged.

Containerization brings all manner of sweetness to the table, but the current way it is used is a throwback to 1998.

Not having desktop software inside a small container does reduce the attack surface. Debian, Ubuntu, Centos can handle that requirement just fine. What is your point?

Why not? Let's run the numbers.

* http://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Special:ActiveUsers

14 active users. That is not a lot. In fact, that is tiny. Maybe their redmine has more? http://bugs.alpinelinux.org/projects/alpine says 16 users in the 'developers' group.

But maybe they're very pro-active on the mailinglist? Let's check their security announce list:

* http://lists.alpinelinux.org/alpine-security/

1 message. From 2009. Hmm. Well, their alpine-devel list then? 5110 messages in 10 years. 9 Messages per week. By comparison: the debian developers mailinglist had 492 messages in November 2015 alone.

So even though Alpine Linux looks nice and lean, it is maintained by a very small group of developers.

Now. If building your own container were very very hard, I'd sure understand grasping for something like Alpine.

But here's how you build an Ubuntu Trusty container:

     debootstrap --variant="minbase" --include="systemd-sysv" trusty ${TMPDIR} ${UBUNTU_MIRROR}
     chroot ${TMPDIR} 
     dpkg-divert --local --rename --add /sbin/initctl
     ln -sf /bin/true /sbin/initctl
     dpkg-divert --local --rename /usr/bin/ischroot 
     ln -sf /bin/true /usr/bin/ischroot

Just tarball it and throw it in 'docker import'. Your done.

Need to add or remove software? Use Ansible to configure specific containers with specific confgurations.

Need security-updates? chroot into the folder, apt-get update; apt-get upgrade.

Throw the new tarball into docker import again. You use long-term supported methods and systems. There are tens of thousands of packages. Bazillions of PPAs to use.

Edit: typo in codesnippet

> rape town!

The amount of assumptions and fear in reactions like these worry me way more than those refugees themselves.

There was an excellent presentation on this at Fosdem 2014: http://video.fosdem.org/2014/UD2120_Chavanne/Saturday/OSv_a_...