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Comment by janice1999 | Hacker News Reader

janice1999

I'm not an iTerm2 user and the attitude of the developer in the response has certainly convinced me to never become one. I understand open source developers get burnt out, particularly with backlash from demanding users who contribute nothing in return, but the contempt for users with very valid concerns about AI and data leaks is not a healthy sign.

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Their concerns aren't really valid. It's an entirely optional feature. There is no functional difference between being in the core and being a plugin. Someone who wants to violate exfiltration policies can still do so with maybe one extra step.

Right, there's no functional difference, but there certainly is a social and organizational difference: if a feature is provided as a plug-in, it makes it somewhat more difficult (and, importantly, clearly signals to the user that this is the case) for default-off to turn into default-on, or for optional to turn into required, neither of which is unheard of in modern software development.

On a technical level there is no relevant difference but on a social level there well is, in my opinion.

The expectation is that plugins need to be activated explicitly and that do not get installed or activated automatically. Even stronger, a common impression about plugins is, that they are often a pain to install and get working. I know that this expectation has been violated occasionally in one form or another but I doubt that many people are aware of that or could even come up with examples.

Built-in features on the other hand are completely different. The usual experience is they get moved around, enabled, disabled willy nilly without notification or consent with every (unrelated) update. iTerm2 is not like that and George has done a fantastic job to build a ton of trust over decades, but I don't blame anyone not knowing that and being cautious.

I completely agree. We often forget it's not always about the technical details of the implementation. Its about the attitude of developers and their relationship with their users and those users expectations. Users are 100% correct to be skeptical or even worried when they hear "AI integration". Putting it into the "core" makes a clear statement about the projects intentions. The developer recognizes this by saying the plugin change was to put people "at ease".

The developer did listen and came up with a change. All the while enduring insults, threats, and lies directed at him in the GitLab thread and all over the internet. Yet you attack him [*] for being slightly emotional in his response this one time? Wow.

Speaking of attitude, iTerm2 is a gift, and some users (or maybe even non-users) appear to be in need of a reminding.

[*]: Your top level comment

> the attitude of the developer in the response has certainly convinced me to never become one

If you are a Mac user and not using (or at least considering) iTerm2, you are doing yourself a disservice. It is by far the best terminal emulator available and runs circles around the built-in option.

If you are a not a Mac user, then the entire discussion is moot either way.

iTerm is pretty mid for a mac terminal emulator in my opinion.

Before it I would recommend kitty or alacritty.

Thanks for the recommendations! I checked them both out, but for me iTerm is still a better fit. I think of my Mac terminal as my viewer into the lower level, and not as the lower level, and the batteries-included approach that iTerm takes (e.g. having a UI for manipulating the settings file) is better aligned with that view.

FWIW, they both seem extremely performant and would probably be a great fit if I daily-drove Linux.

I'm not quite sure what a UI to configure the terminal has to do with being a "viewer into the lower level" since they both run the system zsh and give the same output.

It sounds like it's more about the extra features being included than the "batteries". What features does a terminal emulator need other than "lets a user enter stdin and displays stdout/err"?

> It is by far the best terminal emulator available and runs circles around the built-in option.

How so?

You won't use iTerm2 because the dev made a joke about some companies' overly-restrictive IT departments?

Nothing in the comment seems like a "joke" to me. It reads as bitter and condescending and based on the responses here I am not the only one to interpret it that way. That's not the kind of project I'd want to depend on.

I think the root of this issue here is trust and control. I work for a company with a restrictive IT department. It's not "overly-restrictive" because the data with we work with is sensitive. Banning all AI enabled products, which my company did, is absolutely the logical and safe thing to do. (We have self hosted hosted AI solutions and limited GitHub CoPilot access now.)

I'm not an iTerm2 user and only learned about it during this controversy. I was actually interested in using it aside from the AI stuff, and plan on trying it as my primary terminal emulator after the developer's actions.

>very valid concerns

The AI stuff is disabled by default, the concerns are unfounded.

In security, minimization is always preferred over hardening. Always.

iTerm2 is a highly feature-filled terminal. If you are looking for minimal attack surface, you shouldn't be using iTerm2 anyway.

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