That's true, but also true is the fact that a large part of the reason for using alternatives is to avoid this kind of data collection. So it's reasonable to expect to lose users with a decision like this.
It is still much less data, and does not allow them to identify you AFAIK. Even if they go with opt-in (not yet decided - it seems to be being debated and thy are asking for feedback) it is still far better than proprietary OSes.
Like any at all?
There's this deep sense of entitlement coming from software devs and vendors, that's completely unjustified. Comparisons on the amount and type of data collected is missing the point. It doesn't matter whether Manjaro is sending more or less telemetry than MacOS - neither of them should be doing it in the first place.
They have no actual right to that data, no matter how much having it makes the devs' jobs easier. What they should do is ask for it, honestly and convincingly, like asking users for a favor, because it's exactly what it is (and it's not like anyone is considering compensating user for the service).
I frequently wonder what breed of human sincerely disagrees. I sometimes think the realm of software encourages through detachment (remoteness, distance from the users) a sense of liberty for the id. If this shit was attempted physically, in person, there'd be a lot of missing teeth.
Data collection can be harmful, but it's also extremely useful to know how people are using products and infrastructure. There's a balance, and if you're on the "zero data collection" side, I think you need to justify making the devs' lives harder by explaining what harms will come from the proposed collection.
I disagree. I don't need to show actual harm to reasonably object to being spied on. At least Manjaro isn't talking about making this mandatory, but opt-out is is still a very poor look that would make me avoid using it as long as there are other options that are more respectful.
Please explain what specifically Manjaro is proposing to do that you classify as being "spied on." Don't handwave this away, actually answer the question.
What I'm complaining about is the evasion of having to get informed consent to collect personal data. Opt-out is a way to try to cover your ass while at the same time being able to avoid asking for consent.
The argument for it is always the same: if we make it opt-in, then not enough people will opt in. Which is another way of saying "if people won't give us permission to collect data about them, then we need to stop asking permission."
It's not really a compromise. It's devs declaring that they deserve access to this data regardless of what users want, and trying to make it less objectionable. It remains the case that this is a back door method of extracting data from users that they don't really want to give.
If users didn't mind giving it, then enough would say "yes" to the opt-in screen that it wouldn't matter. But they don't, so these devs are trying to impose the very thing users don't want as forcefully as they can get away with.
This is all about disempowering users.
Precisely!
That is, the specific information does not matter; the fact that someone wants to keep it hidden (which is their stated preference), and someone else wants to collect it through clandestine means (which is how we could interpret a sneaky opt-out mechanism) is enough to define it as being spied on.
2. It very much matters what the specific information is. I too wouldn't want my Linux distro scanning my GMail inbox through their distro-bundled browser, of course. But how many times I started Kitty is something I don't quite enjoy being shared but I also wouldn't be outraged if it was.
Nuance matters, just doing an extremist takes does not help anyone.
Yes it is, until I choose to share it. That is the point of consent - I decide what I want to share, not you.
As said in another comment of mine posted just minutes ago -- practice shows that anonymous telemetry is the only viable way of getting some usage data. Almost nobody fills out surveys.
Do most software need those stats? I'd say they don't, but I worked on pieces of software that absolutely needed to know which parts are most used and which are almost not used because the extra features cluttered the UI and confused people, leading to less buys / subs.
There are endless examples of data flowing where one wouldn't expect. Doesn't IP6 wrap the MAC address into the IP? This alone is pretty significant. It goes on and on, but I don't see this as an excuse to go full-nudist in a fit of futility with all data.
And another thing I frequently wonder: who benefits? I honestly don't see things functionally improving in a way that I can't live without as a result of all this telemetry. I don't see that many people clamoring for the kinds of improvements this telemetry is supposed to enable. I know technology does improve, but I just can't remember where things were so bad I needed to mass-email my dossier to the world. Generally, I just made a forum post or bug report.
I've done so, no less than 15 times in the last ~9 years. We always took special care to never include anything personally identifiable; it was a hard requirement and was enforced in code reviews and because of that we ended up hashing user IDs because we still wanted to do flame graphs and various distribution statistics of API endpoint usage and user IDs were one of the axii (two others were hours of day and days of week), but we didn't care who the user was.
Seriously, a little less extremism helps. I am a programmer, likely just like you. We are trying to get some data to improve our software. In several of my previous gigs even the CTOs barely cared about the telemetry graphs and aggregation dashboards and only looked at them at the middle of the quarter to make sure we're not spending too much on Grafana so the executives won't bite their heads off. And the CEO / marketing? Forget it, they don't care.
Of course there are some very predatory companies out there, no doubt. But I think we would be very hard-pressed to put the team of an open Linux distribution among them.
Sure, but that's not really the point. First, in every company I've worked at that has dealt with PII, their definition of "PII" excludes quite a lot of data that should count.
But even if all PII is properly excluded and everything is actually anonymized, that still doesn't address the point. The point is all about consent. Consent seems like it should be table stakes, no?
I agreed for most of my career but not anymore. Truth is, everywhere I worked, the voluntary user surveys had extremely low engagement rate -- which was frustrating for the dev team who wanted to make sure their users like the product. Sometimes that means deprecating / removing parts of the software.
I get your idea and I don't generally disagree. It's just that practice has shown that collecting anonymous telemetry is the only really viable way of getting information of what's being used, how much, does it perform well (I used telemetry stats to optimize a hot code path on a number of occasions) both in terms of hardware efficiency and business terms, and others.
It's one of those things that I solved for myself by trusting or not trusting each piece of software individually. That's why I am currently slowly migrating back to Linux (from macOS); Apple overdid the telemetry to downright complete spying and sometimes censorship so I am no longer okay with them.
So if people don't want to volunteer their data and time, you engage in dark behaviors to get the data out of them regardless?
Don't look for boogeymen on HN, they are not on this forum. ;)
I'll again agree opt-out by default is not the most privacy-friendly approach but voluntary user surveys had almost non-existent user base. So some companies took a more aggressive approach. Those I don't like. But a Linux distro? Dunno, seems like an overreaction in this particular case.
Again, we come back around to "if users don't want to willingly give us this data, then we're just going to take it." That's what I think is ethically objectionable. Sure, the data is useful -- but if people don't want to give it, that usefulness does not justify taking it anyway.
Opt-out is better than not being able to even do that much, but in my view, it's still unethical. And, practically, it means that I have to treat all software as suspicious and can't really be comfortable with any of it.
I'm used to that with smartphones and Windows, and deal with that by avoiding installing any software if unless I absolutely have to. I'm just trying to avoid having to take the same stance with OSS. But perhaps that's a lost cause and trust in any software at all is not supportable.
While it may be commonly accepted by most, I don't want my personal computer crawling with telemetry. I despise the idea.
The harm is, in my opinion, partly in creep, where just a little more, here and there, leads to a festering, unchecked data brothel. And regarding 'harm' as a necessary parameter for maintaining privacy, dignity, etc; it would cause absolutely no harm to me if I was watched every time I used the bathroom, provided responsible handling of the acquired video. But I don't want this and would object to any effort otherwise. I don't think harm is the only factor.
People who genuinely care to fine-tune their software to work better for their users. What monsters.
I personally don't think it's such a monster move to send some anonymous usage data, especially if you present a box with a choice once the program starts for the first time. (Granted that's not what Manjaro is doing here.)
I'd rather people become overly (even unreasonably) sensitive to it than keep going with the flow. It's too easy to start with innocent bits, then more and more until real-time surveillance style Windows Recall shittery.
That was my point, yes. And I'll agree it's a slippery slope.
0. Only link I could quickly find: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/nbio7c/audacity_resp...
> Like any at all?
No, don't sidestep the question, actually answer it. What data are they collecting and how is it harmful? The devs feel this information is useful to make their software better. If you think you are harmed by this, please explain how.
This is why some users opt for a system that enforce Opt-In or even Opt-Never by default. The sheer peace of mind is worth a lot.
And it's not even such a strange stance. Consider eg Enterprise or National security. Why shouldn't a regular user have such security by default?
So? Crime being profitable doesn't make it legal.
> No, don't sidestep the question, actually answer it. What data are they collecting and how is it harmful? The devs feel this information is useful to make their software better. If you think you are harmed by this, please explain how.
So if I enter your house you will also enter a discussion of what I stole and if you really needed it before you are allowed to kick me out even though I never had permission to enter your house in the first place?
I disagree. Breaking into a home and stealing stuff is obviously harmful. I don't think you have demonstrated the harm of "taking your data".
It's theirs, not yours. Fundamentally, it's not about harm - it's about you getting stuff you have no (moral, cultural, and in many places legal) right to.
As for harm: there is possibility of it, a lot of software does collect data for it to be used against users' interests, and I have no reason to believe yours isn't one of them.
'Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. '
The TL;DR is that data about a system does not reflect the underlying system perfectly, and thus is a distortion of the real system. Decisions based on this distorted data can be equally distorted, sometimes dangerously so.
For software telemetry for instance, telemetry only gives the "what", not "how"
eg. feature X is not used.
Possible explanations:
- Not useful to users -> Probably should be removed.
- Not discoverable -> Probably should be kept and made more discoverable.
- Difficult to use -> Probably should be kept and made easier to use.
Most times (I'm looking at you here Mozilla and every commercial software provider ever) people take the shortcut of assuming the first explanation and removing it prematurely.
OR
- "Users interact with feature Z a lot" -> "Z is very hard to use and requires lots of fiddling"
- You've forgotten the denominator
Features A and B may be equally important, but B may be applicable only in specific circumstances. If you'd compare A and B on the metric of "how often it's used", you may see B being used much, much less than A, but that's not reflective of the feature, but of the job being done.
- But how is collecting data harmful?
The problem isn't any single data point. It's that historically, seemingly innocent data collection has repeatedly enabled serious harm when contexts change. (And yes, I'm aware of Godwin's Law[1], and/but the historical examples are directly relevant here.)
- Surely one more app collecting data isn't the end of the world?
No, but it's death by a thousand cuts. We're at a point where young tech professionals are already resigned to total surveillance. Each new data collection might seem minor, but they're all contributing to a flood of personal data leaking from our devices. We need to start turning off the taps, not adding new ones.
Asking the users what they like and why is much more useful.
I expect my computer to do what I order to do and not to do shady things behind my back. Imagine if you were a business owner and your new hire would sell your commercial secrets to competitors. Would you like it?
As for improving software, users should contribute voluntarily, not mandatory otherwise it looks like a form of non-monetary tax.
That's an incredibly low bar. I think that good software should aim much, much higher than that.