8 ms·
FYI, from the announcement. Probably the most important part at the end, italicized by me. Also note (elsewhere) that licenses are MIT and Apache2: .NET Core
by daveguy 10y ago
FYI, from the announcement. Probably the most important part at the end, italicized by me. Also note (elsewhere) that licenses are MIT and Apache2:
.NET Core Tools Telemetry
The .NET Core tools include a telemetry feature so that we can collect usage information about the .NET Core Tools. It’s important that we understand how the tools are being used so that we can improve them. Part of the reason the tools are in Preview is that we don’t have enough information on the way that they will be used. The telemetry is only in the tools and does not affect your app.
Behavior
The telemetry feature is on by default. The data collected is anonymous in nature and will be published in an aggregated form for use by both Microsoft and community engineers under a Creative Commons license.
You can opt-out of the telemetry feature by setting an environment variable DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT (e.g. export on OS X/Linux, set on Windows) to true (e.g. “true”, 1). Doing this will stop the collection process from running.
Data Points
The feature collects the following pieces of data:
The command being used (e.g. “build”, “restore”)
The ExitCode of the command
For test projects, the test runner being used
The timestamp of invocation
The framework used
Whether runtime IDs are present in the “runtimes” node
The CLI version being used
The feature will not collect any personal data, such as usernames or emails. It will not scan your code and not extract any project-level data that can be considered sensitive, such as name, repo or author (if you set those in your project.json). We want to know how the tools are used, not what you are using the tools to build. If you find sensitive data being collected, that’s a bug. Please file an issue and it will be fixed.
- Analemma_ 10y agoI choose to ignore this post so five weeks from now I can write an outraged "Microsoft is TRACKING YOU" article on Medium that will garner me praise and upvotes.
- jsingleton 10y agoMuch quicker and easier than simply forking the code and commenting out the telemetry feature :P
- stephengillie 10y agoAnd also generates more upvotes.
- tacos 10y agoAnd 100x quicker than setting the clearly documented environment variable that disables the feature. > You can opt-out of the telemetry feature by setting an environment variable DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT (e.g. export on OS X/Linux, set on Windows) to true (e.g. “true”, 1). Doing this will stop the collection process from running.
- ATsch 10y agoIt is still opt-out, and thus considered harmful (at least by me)
- tacos 10y ago"The telemetry is only in the tools and does not affect your app."
- newjersey 10y agoI'm one of the self-appointed resident whiners but I think I'll cut them some slack because they've used the magic word "preview". This case is different from silently adding telemetry on a minor upgrade to a tool in production
- jsmeaton 10y agoI just installed these tools and it tells you on first invocation that telemetry is enabled and how ti disable it. I think that buys a little bit of good will. I am also opposed to telemetry by default, but I understand it, and appreciate the opt out message being presented clear and up front.
- sxg 10y agoIf it were opt-in, they'd collect significantly less data, and the data they do collect would likely by heavily skewed. Microsoft could be misled by the poor quality of data collected, and an opt-in system could actually be worse than not collecting any data in the first place. The way I see it, at the end of the day, the decision for Microsoft is really between not collecting data and an opt-out system. If Microsoft chooses not to collect data, then all developers have to live with tools that improve slowly and have issues (possibly security related that could be maliciously abused) that are not fixed as quickly as they could be. If Microsoft chooses an opt-out system, they can collect the data they need to make sure their tools are working optimally and as intended. Some developers may not be comfortable sharing how they use Microsoft's tools even with no personally identifiable information collected. These people can opt-out while minimally compromising the quality of the data collected. Additionally, the tools are open source, so any developer that's skeptical of how and what data is being collected by the tools can verify Microsoft's claims. Those are the two options I see. To me, the cost/benefit of the second option greatly outweighs the cost/benefit of the first for all involved. By not collecting data, security issues that could actually compromise your privacy could go unfixed for longer. By collecting data through and opt-out and open source system, Microsoft can fix issues ASAP and developers can verify that data is collected in way that preserves their own privacy. It seems like a lot of people are knee-jerking to the idea of collecting data through an opt-out system and not actually weighing the cost/benefit of the realistic options. Can you explain how not collecting data has a lower practical cost/benefit ratio than an opt-out and open source system?
- jsingleton 10y agoThe telemetry was in the original preview release of the tools with RC2. It can be turned off and I believe it won't be in the final stable CLI tools release, but that may change. It's the same with VS and VS Code (and Atom too). There has been a move from opt-in (for older versions of VS) to opt-out. Although I do still see connections to MS domains with all the customer experience stuff turned off.
- wvenable 10y agoMicrosoft is looking to do more data-driven design; this is the reason for all the telemetry in Windows as well. Raymond Chen pointed out an example where a button was removed File Explorer (prime real-estate) because the telemetry showed that hardly anyone ever pressed it. It's unfortunate they are so tone-deaf about the PR implications in Windows.
- brudgers 10y agoThe Story of the Ribbon video about Microsoft and data driven design. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl9kD693ie4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl9kD693ie4
- ethbro 10y agoRibbon, or "How to Figure Out Where a Menu Item Is Based Solely on UX Data"* *Customers may not be granted access to UX data
- jameskegel 10y agoThe Ribbon is, in my opinion, the use interface equivalent of a broken pull tab on a can of corn. I know it is there, I know that I'm supposed to use it, but I can't because it is broken.
- krylon 10y agoI am relieved to see there is somebody out there who shares my opinion on this ... innovation.
- jenscow 10y agoLike when they removed Macros from Visual Studio because according to telemetry only 1% of users used them.
- hatchnyc 10y agoI always suspected that there was probably significant overlap between users of macros and users who opted out of telemetry. Lesson learned: leaving "yes" checked from now on.
- 616c 10y agoSo random question: I like when MS people come out and engage the community like we are responsible adults and not like moronic children who need hand-holding and cannot decide for ourselves. Since we all know the famous "Open Source is cancer" reign of Balmer oft-joked of here, I assume the related issue at hand is culture shift is good and less of a concern now, as opposed to a few years ago. But I am super happy when people like you drop by. How do people like us on HN, Reddit, and Ars get you and those like you to say, see daveguy's manager[s], we will reconsider our avoidance of the MS tech stack because how daveguy did X? Is this silly? I am not sure. But I wonder if I am the only one who wants people like yourself to thrive so MS keeps going in this direction.
- sremani 10y agoI think that kind of engagement is present on their github repos.
- 616c 10y agoWell, until it is not interesting for them as a PR strategy. I do not want to lose these people when the pendulum swings back the other way. And you and I check Github. That does not mean anyone being engineering managers care. I am curious what else we can do beyond starring GH repos. I do that, I just do not like my lazy armchair form of support and worry I will lose a culture shift at MS I have quickly fallen in love with after years of reviling the company as a whole, short-sighted or not.
- tracker1 10y agoPurely subjective and observational... but I had a few MS guys go out of their way to communicate a bug in probably the most popular node.js driver for MS-SQL (tedious), and it was interesting... There wasn't as much updated on the Github issue, but I was included in on some of the communication issues, and they were pretty open about it. The person that had poked in was iirc, and Azure developer in MS, not from the MS-SQL team. There are plenty of developers at MS that do follow various GH projects (as happens everywhere else) and will get the right people involved when they see things. I would presume that by pushing these kinds of projects (.Net Core, etc) out to github, and even the documentation likely won't see things close off any time soon, and not without losing more mindshare than Oracle has caused people to move away from Java.
- pjmlp 10y agoSo it is bad when Microsoft asks to do it, but ok when Eclipse, Netbeans or InteliJ do it? They are being quite open about it and how to turn it off.
- SwellJoe 10y agoI don't think the previous comment is suggesting it is bad. I think they're trying to stave off any "OMG! MS is looking at your porn!" posts, by highlighting the privacy policy of the telemetry; which sound reasonable to most people.
- daveguy 10y agoThank you. I wasn't suggesting it is necessarily bad. It looks like the openness and ease of disabling is being handled much better here than with Win10. However, the option to disable on install (checkbox prompt for preference) would be much better. This is an improvement over the Win10 approach.
- pjmlp 10y agoSorry if I took it the wrong way and jumped the gun too soon. Microsoft is by no means an example of sainthood, but many in the HN community tend to only criticize it, while closing the eyes to similar actions of companies that are closer at heart.
- dd9990 10y agoYes. It's bad when Microsoft does it this way because it's opt-out. IntelliJ/Android Studio prompts you and asks you your preference first. I think Eclipse is opt-in but could be mistaken.
- hk__2 10y agoThat’s the recurring debate with opt-in = better for privacy but skewed stats vs. opt-out = more relevant stats but bad for privacy(?).
- 10y ago
- 4684499 10y agoI simply don't want to be tracked in any form regardless of whether it collects my personal data. Yet it seems more and more impossible these days. It's like "If there's nothing about collecting your personal data, then you should compromise".
- michaeltyson 10y agoSorry to tell you this 4684499, but this website and most every other website on the internet knows how many page views they have and the IP addresses that are used to get to their website, etc. ...all because they have telemetry on the server. It's how they tell if something is working or not working. Not all telemetry is bad.
- 4684499 10y agoAt least it should be an opt-in, not opt-out.
- Retra 10y agoA router has to track you to know where to send the info you've requested.
- 4684499 10y agoWell, it does track, but it doesn't necessarily collect the data and use it to profiling users. I just don't like to be experimented like a little white mouse in a mouse lab, regardless of whether it's for good or bad.
- shrugger2 10y agoI am surprisingly okay with this. If this is indeed all that is being collected, then I am totally okay with that data being collected from time to time. I would like for my architecture and usage style to be represented, so that my workflow isn't made obsolete.
- HNSucksAss 10y agoSo what?