I'm an ex-Googler who has admired Golang for many years and have been considering it for use in my hardware startup.
The fact that opt-out-only telemetry was even considered, much less appears to be already decided(?), makes me far less likely to use this tool chain at any time in the future.
You see this pattern in other "free in license only" software where the important decisions are made without community input.
The Go team has come back on some other decisions in the past after they proved controversial. I can't predict the future, I'm not a member of the Go team, but I'll take the bet that the proposal will either be abandoned or that it becomes opt-in.
The speed at which this topic has escalated since the idea was raised last week is astonishing. The biggest mistake Cox has made is assuming people would at least read the three blog posts and debate the topic as presented.
I'm not thrilled at the idea of opt-out telemetry but some of the rhetoric is well and truly beyond the pale.
Yes, I agree he was perhaps a bit naïve about this. On the other hand: I also don't really know how to do this type of discussion better. Russ obviously went out of his way to come up with a nuanced solution, which one could reasonably disagree with, but I have the impression many people didn't bother reading it, especially on HN here but also in the Go discussion about it. This thread is full of basic misunderstandings, or, if we want to be less generous about it, misinformation. I don't think most people do it on purpose, it is what it comes down to in the end.
One of the really great things about internet discussions is that anyone can join in. One of the bad things about internet discussions is that anyone can join in.
Telemetry is one of those topics that comes with a lot of baggage. Coupled with Google's baggage and we see the inevitable response. I have a similar impression as you - people saw the word "telemetry" and thought they'd read enough.
I thought Cox's posts were great. I came in thinking, "telemetry? hell no!" but came away thinking he made a good case. People can still disagree over it but some of the misinformation is absolutely unbelievable.
a) Backed by Google
b) Intended to be enabled by default
... then it might be worth considering. Unfortunately, either one of those is a show stopper all by itself.