4 ms·

Much quicker and easier than simply forking the code and commenting out the telemetry feature :P

stephengillie 10y ago
And also generates more upvotes.
tacos 10y ago
And 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 ago
  It 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 ago
    I'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 ago
    I 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 ago
    If 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?
    - tacos 10y ago
      For me the issue comes down to whether or not Microsoft does anything useful with this data (probably not, if 20 years of NVIDIA blue screen driver failure logs, Windows 8 and OneDrive are any example of how 'big data' impacts Microsoft product quality) versus how many comments I have to read where joeblow52 is personally offended that Microsoft dares to learn what his compile time plus 999,999 other compile times, divided by a million, equals.
      - prewett 10y ago

And also generates more upvotes.

tacos 10y ago

And 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 ago
It 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 ago
  I'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 ago
  I 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 ago
  If 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?
  - tacos 10y ago
    For me the issue comes down to whether or not Microsoft does anything useful with this data (probably not, if 20 years of NVIDIA blue screen driver failure logs, Windows 8 and OneDrive are any example of how 'big data' impacts Microsoft product quality) versus how many comments I have to read where joeblow52 is personally offended that Microsoft dares to learn what his compile time plus 999,999 other compile times, divided by a million, equals.
    - prewett 10y ago