[tor-bugs] #30346 [Internal Services/Service - nextcloud]: Can't create or open riseup pads in Nextcloud

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#30346: Can't create or open riseup pads in Nextcloud
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 Reporter:  alsmith                              |          Owner:
                                                 |  nextcloud-admin@…
     Type:  defect                               |         Status:  new
 Priority:  Medium                               |      Milestone:
Component:  Internal Services/Service -          |        Version:
  nextcloud                                      |
 Severity:  Normal                               |     Resolution:
 Keywords:                                       |  Actual Points:
Parent ID:                                       |         Points:
 Reviewer:                                       |        Sponsor:
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Comment (by micah):

 Hi,

 I had added this pad plugin to nextcloud to test it before Tor started
 using the nextcloud instance, but had determined that it was not something
 we could support, and so removed the plugin. I removed it after Tor
 started using nextcloud. I was hoping nobody would notice that this was
 removed, clearly I was wrong :(

 There were a couple reasons why I removed it. The main reason is that it
 creates pads that will be destroyed by riseup's pad cleanup process, and
 it does so without it being obvious. This means that the pads would be
 created, content added, and then in 60 days, the pad would be removed from
 the system, but it would still be in nextcloud as a file. This would
 result in people thinking they still had their pads, but the pads would be
 empty, and you wouldn't know it. This seemed like a very unfortunate,
 hidden UI gotcha that seemed dangerous.

 The other main reason I removed it was that the code had not been audited,
 and all the other add-ons we've set the policy that they have to be
 'official', or reviewed, I had not reviewed this code. It is not a very
 'popular' or heavily installed plugin, which makes me worried that it will
 not continue to be working forever, and the longer we have it enabled, the
 more dependent on it people become, which will cause us a problem if it
 becomes abandoned upstream.

 I'm not sure what to do here. The code could be audited, and we could even
 change the code to create permanent pads only. All of this is technically
 possible. However, the honest truth is I do not want to maintain a fork of
 this plugin for the purpose of encouraging people to create permanent pads
 that we need to carry forever. This ends up meaning a bunch of extra work
 for me to do: fork the plugin, and carry that fork forward through all
 upgrades, re-applying the changes each time, and following all the changes
 that the plugin or nextcloud makes over time in order to adjust the forked
 changes. That extra work would result in more permanent pads, which means
 more work for me to carry those pads forever. So it feels to me like the
 wrong thing to do to spend a lot of time making something that will cause
 me to have to spend more time.

 I don't like this answer, and I suspect you all do not either. You
 probably found this plugin to be particularly useful, and would like it if
 it were re-enabled... and I feel bad that I disabled it after people
 started to use it.

 There is another possible solution, which would be for tor to run its own
 etherpad installation, and then we set the plugin to use that instead.
 This isn't a great solution either, because this nextcloud instance is
 used by other people outside of tor, so it would have to be something done
 after the evaluation was done, and it was determined that this project
 should continue, and a tor-specific nextcloud was setup.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/30346#comment:2>
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