23 ms·

Yes we know. brew tells you that. And you can disable it. Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites, using the same t

by pvinis 10y ago

Yes we know. brew tells you that. And you can disable it. Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites, using the same technology. So what? Some of the times it's to make the product better, or better targeted. Some other times it's just for spying on the users. Let's stop complaining about stuff that someone does and tell you they do it. There are many more that do the same things without telling you. Furthermore, now that you know, for brew specifically, will you opt out? Is your brew command history so secret that you care more about noone looking at it than helping making brew better? Chances are you use brew quite often. Chances are brew is not perfect. Will you choose to make its progress slower because of no real security reason? How do we expect open source to become better if everyone is being a crybaby because brew got a history of how often they do brew update?

wheelerwj 10y ago
We have to start somewhere. Opt in should always be the standard.
- mrmondo 10y ago
  This. Exactly this, thank you.
- pvinis 10y ago
  Sure. Opt in would be nice. But only if it was opt in always and everywhere, and all users, technical or otherwise, knew the reasons why analytics are gathered for a product they use. I think in that case, many people would still opt in. I would. And I would hope users of my products would too.
  - wheelerwj 10y ago
    Yes, and maybe it's okay if we don't have perfect visibility. We've been building things for thousands of years without Javascript event notifications, I'm sure we will do just fine with a little less data
- tomfluff 10y ago
  Organ donation?
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Yes, there are arguments for organ donation to be opt-out. But that's extreme case, when one loses literally nothing - by virtue of being already dead - and another person stands to gain additional years of life[0]. Some other socially beneficial things also have strong arguments for being opt-out (like retirement plans, because opt-out protects people from their own stupidity/short-sightedness). But that doesn't change the validity of the proposal that opt-in should be the standard - exceptions from which must have solid reasons. Just making it easier for someone to make money off people is not one of those reasons. Neither is vague "making the product better". -- [0] - INB4 yes, there are also valid arguments that opt-out organ donations will reduce doctors' willingness to fight for patient's life. Human societies are complicated.
    - tremon 10y ago
      Yes, there are arguments for organ donation to be opt-out. But that's extreme case, when one loses literally nothing Actually, I've opted out because my next of kin stand to lose quite a lot (the harvesting of organs needs to be done quickly, well within the mourning period of the people I care about the most). The decision to leave sight of my body needs to be theirs, and theirs alone.
      - orf 10y ago
        Well if you can't bear the thought of your friends and relatives not being able to stare at your dead corpse for a couple of hours and value that over doing something amazing and saving someone's life then more fool you. If your in the position to donate organs you most likely died in an accident. You likely won't have that rosy picture of your family and friends around your beside. You might not have anyone. What a waste.
        tremon 10y ago
akerro 10y ago
> Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites using the save technology No, it's not. µblock, µmatrix + clean links.
- philjr 10y ago
  That would be an opt-out strategy, would it not?
- asymmetric 10y ago
  Is there a point in running both ublock and umatrix? Also, what do you mean by "clean links"? Striped of "utm..." parts?
  - sesqu 10y ago
    Clean Links is a plugin that strips the utm-like trackers, affiliate codes, outbound redirects, window.open, and some other relays from links.
  - akerro 10y ago
    µblock blocks and removes ads and trackers, µmatrix does the same for cookies and JS. Clean links improve page loading times when you click on a link on reddit or Google, it extracts destination link and gets you directly to the destination without redirect, also google, facebook don't know that you clicked the link.
    - asymmetric 10y ago
      > µblock blocks and removes ads and trackers, µmatrix does the same for cookies and JS. Not according to its creator https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode
Waterluvian 10y ago
If it tells us, then this is a wake up call to me because I don't recall ever becoming informed of that. I must have rushed past the notification. I probably would have still say OK but I like to at least be aware. Shame on me.
tdkl 10y ago
>Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites, using the same technology. So what? This still doesn't mean we should just shut up and take it for desktop software. What anyone does on its OS shouldn't leave the LAN - same critique stands for recent MS endeavour with Windows 10.
- pvinis 10y ago
  I definitely don't mean that we should shut up and take it. But before we complain about an open source project that maaaaany devs use happily, let's complain about those other cases first, yea?
  - blub 10y ago
    We can complain just fine about whichever software we want, don't try to make up rules and come to us with fake outrage about even greater injustices. This is a classical attempt to muddy the waters.
    - pvinis 10y ago
      Ok, sure. At least complain for both. I didn't see the post referring to anything besides brew. I'm all for protesting and trying to fix any size and kind of injustice. But just don't target the less guilty. brew is still guilty for not having an even bigger announcement. But less target others too, at least. I would hate to see brew or any other similar software be the sole target and have to change for the worse, because it was unlucky enough to be the scapegoat.
      - hueving 10y ago
        >I didn't see the post referring to anything besides brew. That's because this post is about brew. Windows 10 got tons of flak when it pulled this crap as well. "There are worse cases" is not an excuse for a project doing something shitty.
  - userbinator 10y ago
blub 10y ago
The US approach to privacy is "let the market sort it out". It has sorted it out by transforming the internet into a giant spying machine sucking up contacts, photos, documents, videos, metadata, what packages you use, when where and how you exercise, everything The EU approach to privacy (eroded by lobbying and lack of control over US companies) is that citizens have a right over their information. They can ask what personal information a company has on them, ask that it be corrected or deleted. This has resulted in companies that are more careful with data. Whenever I read a post like yours I immediately think of so-called "useful innocents", to put it euphemistically [1]. Fighting for a non-goal of better open source through analytics (get real), corporate dominance and fewer rights for individuals. Companies don't need analytics to improve software. They certainly don't need analytics from Google, the leading spyware-as-a-service company in the world. I expect open source to become better through writing quality software, engaging with users and if need be doing some surveys or organsising other reach-out initiatives in the open. Not analytics turned on by default but it's-ok-cause-we-tell-you-we're-fucking-you. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
- wfunction 10y ago
  > The EU approach to privacy (eroded by lobyying and lack of control over US companies) is that citizens have a right over their information. They can ask what personal information a company has on them, ask that it be corrected or deleted. This has resulted in companies that are more careful with data. More like, this has resulted in things like nonsensical "Cookie warnings" that only waste the user's time.
  - DonHopkins 10y ago
    Not entirely. I've learned to read the word "cookie" in many different languages.
  - Semaphor 10y ago
    It has resulted in a lot of good things. Cookie consent is most certainly not one of them.
eveningcoffee 10y ago
>Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites, using the same technology. So what? No, it is not so what. This is a major problem with Google instead. The fact that a single company can track majority of the web traffic is a huge risk.
bnegreve 10y ago
> Some of the times it's to make the product better, or better targeted. Some other times it's just for spying on the users. Let's stop complaining These kinds of complains are fine, I don't think we should stop them. It's a bit like corruption in politics, it's not going to be solved anytime soon, but complains do raise awareness and prevent abuses. Who know what's going to happen if we stop complaining?
belorn 10y ago
> Will you choose to make its progress slower because of no real security reason? No real security reason? We can test that. The developer who added this feature can easy earn trust in such statement by changing the disclaimer and making themselves liable if information extracted through this mechanism causes any identifiable harm. If this is a sure bet, no risk, perfectly guarantied to be safe, then such change should be trivial.
codedokode 10y ago
Is tracking user's actions the only way to improve software? That is not what one would expect from free and open source software project. If developers needs an information about how user uses a program, they should ask them to help.
- CJefferson 10y ago
  this is going to sound insulting, but have you tried being an open-source developer? I've worked on products with tens of thousands of users, and the vast majority of those users never communicate. Worse (in my opinion), the users who communicate most tend to be experts, leading to programs tending to become better for expert users, and worse for beginners / occasional users -- see for example how many linux programs have options you can turn on to make them more user-friendly, but of course as a beginner how do you find them?
  - codedokode 10y ago
    If you look at Google Play Store you will see a lot of comments from non-expert users (you can easily see it from their messages). Maybe that is because writing a comment in Play Store is easier than subscribing to a mailing list many projects still use or registering in a forum. Also maybe they do not say anything because everything works ok for them?
  - userbinator 10y ago
    Worse (in my opinion), the users who communicate most tend to be experts, leading to programs tending to become better for expert users, and worse for beginners / occasional users On the other hand, not listening to users but analytics leads to dumbed-down inflexible programs that can't get out of their own way for expert users. If you have "tens of thousands of users" and most of them don't communicate, I'd call that successful. They're satisfied.
  - hueving 10y ago
    >I've worked on products with tens of thousands of users, and the vast majority of those users never communicate. And your answer to that is to spy on them unless they read fine-grained details that even the generally expert users on this site missed?
majewsky 10y ago
> Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites, using the same technology. So what? For websites, there's a standard process for blocking this shit. For desktop applications, there isn't.
Nursie 10y ago
Opt Out is scammy. Command line tools do not usually do this at all, particularly FOSS command line tools. This is a very worrying development and reduces my trust in FOSS. --edit-- to whoever downvoted me, can you explain why? I love FOSS but I also lovemy privacy. I have come to generally have a default level of trust for popular FOSS projects. Things like this make me question that trust. Why is this wrong?
- AsyncAwait 10y ago
  > This is a very worrying development Agreed. > reduces my trust in FOSS Please don't distrust a whole category because of a single tool. Most FOSS tools don't do this, especially if they're "Free Software" as opposed to just being "open-source", since "Free Software" indicates a moral, not just practical stance on software.
  - Nursie 10y ago
    Well perhaps my assumptions about well-known and widely used open source stuff were just too naive. I guess I'm not really thinking "distrust them like they actively include malware" just that it looks like I need to at least keep a look out for stuff like this. I love FOSS. I believe in it, I use it all the time, I've made a few minor contributions here and there too. It's not like I'm saying "OMG FOSS is teh evil!", just that maybe my trust level was calibrated a little high :)
hueving 10y ago
>Yes we know. brew tells you that. And you can disable it. No, we don't know. This article wouldn't have hit the front page if it wasn't subtle and user-hostile by default (opt-out). >Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites, using the same technology. So what? Brew is not a website, it's a CLI tool. People expect this behavior of websites, not of sysadmin tools. How would you feel if you found out your compiler shipped off a copy of your code to a remote server each time you encountered a compiler error "to improve the compiler" and you had to opt out of this behavior? >Some of the times it's to make the product better, or better targeted. Some other times it's just for spying on the users. It's always spying, regardless of the motivation. >How do we expect open source to become better if everyone is being a crybaby because brew got a history of how often they do brew update? Somehow open source has functioned all of these years without silently harvesting users' usage data. I don't know how new you are to open source, but this is definitely not the way you do QA for an open source project.
- JakeTheAndroid 10y ago
  That's a bit extreme. A compiler sending your codebase has potential IP implications. Sending your brew commands back to brew is much different. What commands do you run in brew that isn't specific to brew? Whereas, compiling code is a very specific-to-you scenario. If brew fails, it's likely to be caused by brew itself or a package that is part of the repository. If you your compiler runs into an issue, it's not inherent to the compiler necessarily. I'm not a fan of brew at all, and I can't really find the malice here. Either opt out, stop using brew, or accept it. Why are you on OSX if you care that much about your package manager anyways? Ive worked at many companies, and any that let you choose a MacBook will let you opt for a Linux laptop instead (YMMV I guess).
mikemcquaid 10y ago
> Some of the times it's to make the product better, or better targeted. Homebrew lead maintainer here. This is exactly why we do it. To repeat myself from below: we're chronically understaffed and underfunded. > Furthermore, now that you know, for brew specifically, will you opt out? It's worth noting: if everyone who uses a niche piece of software opt-out when it breaks we'll look at our analytics and likely remove it from Homebrew instead of fixing it. This may be unfair but given the amount of work: we need ways to prioritise. Analytics have helped us do that so we can prioritise fixes on things that are critical for many people.
- quesera 10y ago
  You do not need telemetry from everyone to make informed decisions like this. If just 1% of users opt-in to telemetry, you would have more than enough data for a representative sample set. This is the whole point. You can do the right thing without any loss of data usefulness. So why persist in doing the wrong thing??
  - tn6o 10y ago
    And then the 1% will start complaining. "Why me?" The team behind Brew is doing a great job and if analytics can help them do a better job, then be it. Nobody is forcing you to use it and opting out is simple enough.
- Tepix 10y ago
  Does it have to be Google, the company that already sucks up the most information about pretty much everyone on the internet? Why don't you send the data to your own machines?
  - mikemcquaid 10y ago
    We don't have our own machines that are capable of handling this. If you're offering to host them for us for at least two years for free: get in touch.
    - 10y ago
draw_down 10y ago
Right, as if the feds are coming to get me because they know I installed ImageMagick. Oh no.
- hartator 10y ago
  I have a friend that uses IM to generate memes. So, yeah IM can be used by dissidents. :)
adrianlmm 10y ago
And why not make it opt in instead of the contrary?
aclsid 10y ago
It takes almost zero effort to implement Piwik instead of giving all your data to Google. A simple donate button will take care of the costs of a $15 per month shared server for this purpose. Really that is all it takes. Everything else just goes against the fundamentals of open source software, which is, respect user rights.
fs111 10y ago
> Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites, using the same technology. So what? not on browsers I control
Chris2048 10y ago
> you can disable it if you know about it > There are many more that do the same things without telling you This makes it right? > Will you choose to make its progress slower because of no real security reason Some will, you think it's OK not to give them the choice? > How do we expect open source to become better Is opt-in that hard?

by pvinis 10y ago

wheelerwj 10y ago

We have to start somewhere. Opt in should always be the standard.

mrmondo 10y ago
This. Exactly this, thank you.
pvinis 10y ago
Sure. Opt in would be nice. But only if it was opt in always and everywhere, and all users, technical or otherwise, knew the reasons why analytics are gathered for a product they use. I think in that case, many people would still opt in. I would. And I would hope users of my products would too.
- wheelerwj 10y ago
  Yes, and maybe it's okay if we don't have perfect visibility. We've been building things for thousands of years without Javascript event notifications, I'm sure we will do just fine with a little less data
tomfluff 10y ago
Organ donation?
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Yes, there are arguments for organ donation to be opt-out. But that's extreme case, when one loses literally nothing - by virtue of being already dead - and another person stands to gain additional years of life[0]. Some other socially beneficial things also have strong arguments for being opt-out (like retirement plans, because opt-out protects people from their own stupidity/short-sightedness). But that doesn't change the validity of the proposal that opt-in should be the standard - exceptions from which must have solid reasons. Just making it easier for someone to make money off people is not one of those reasons. Neither is vague "making the product better". -- [0] - INB4 yes, there are also valid arguments that opt-out organ donations will reduce doctors' willingness to fight for patient's life. Human societies are complicated.
  - tremon 10y ago
    Yes, there are arguments for organ donation to be opt-out. But that's extreme case, when one loses literally nothing Actually, I've opted out because my next of kin stand to lose quite a lot (the harvesting of organs needs to be done quickly, well within the mourning period of the people I care about the most). The decision to leave sight of my body needs to be theirs, and theirs alone.
    - orf 10y ago
      Well if you can't bear the thought of your friends and relatives not being able to stare at your dead corpse for a couple of hours and value that over doing something amazing and saving someone's life then more fool you. If your in the position to donate organs you most likely died in an accident. You likely won't have that rosy picture of your family and friends around your beside. You might not have anyone. What a waste.
      - tremon 10y ago

akerro 10y ago

> Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites using the save technology No, it's not. µblock, µmatrix + clean links.

philjr 10y ago
That would be an opt-out strategy, would it not?
asymmetric 10y ago
Is there a point in running both ublock and umatrix? Also, what do you mean by "clean links"? Striped of "utm..." parts?
- sesqu 10y ago
  Clean Links is a plugin that strips the utm-like trackers, affiliate codes, outbound redirects, window.open, and some other relays from links.
- akerro 10y ago
  µblock blocks and removes ads and trackers, µmatrix does the same for cookies and JS. Clean links improve page loading times when you click on a link on reddit or Google, it extracts destination link and gets you directly to the destination without redirect, also google, facebook don't know that you clicked the link.
  - asymmetric 10y ago
    > µblock blocks and removes ads and trackers, µmatrix does the same for cookies and JS. Not according to its creator https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode

Waterluvian 10y ago

If it tells us, then this is a wake up call to me because I don't recall ever becoming informed of that. I must have rushed past the notification. I probably would have still say OK but I like to at least be aware. Shame on me.

tdkl 10y ago

>Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites, using the same technology. So what? This still doesn't mean we should just shut up and take it for desktop software. What anyone does on its OS shouldn't leave the LAN - same critique stands for recent MS endeavour with Windows 10.

pvinis 10y ago
I definitely don't mean that we should shut up and take it. But before we complain about an open source project that maaaaany devs use happily, let's complain about those other cases first, yea?
- blub 10y ago
  We can complain just fine about whichever software we want, don't try to make up rules and come to us with fake outrage about even greater injustices. This is a classical attempt to muddy the waters.
  - pvinis 10y ago
    Ok, sure. At least complain for both. I didn't see the post referring to anything besides brew. I'm all for protesting and trying to fix any size and kind of injustice. But just don't target the less guilty. brew is still guilty for not having an even bigger announcement. But less target others too, at least. I would hate to see brew or any other similar software be the sole target and have to change for the worse, because it was unlucky enough to be the scapegoat.
    - hueving 10y ago
      >I didn't see the post referring to anything besides brew. That's because this post is about brew. Windows 10 got tons of flak when it pulled this crap as well. "There are worse cases" is not an excuse for a project doing something shitty.
- userbinator 10y ago

blub 10y ago

The US approach to privacy is "let the market sort it out". It has sorted it out by transforming the internet into a giant spying machine sucking up contacts, photos, documents, videos, metadata, what packages you use, when where and how you exercise, everything The EU approach to privacy (eroded by lobbying and lack of control over US companies) is that citizens have a right over their information. They can ask what personal information a company has on them, ask that it be corrected or deleted. This has resulted in companies that are more careful with data. Whenever I read a post like yours I immediately think of so-called "useful innocents", to put it euphemistically [1]. Fighting for a non-goal of better open source through analytics (get real), corporate dominance and fewer rights for individuals. Companies don't need analytics to improve software. They certainly don't need analytics from Google, the leading spyware-as-a-service company in the world. I expect open source to become better through writing quality software, engaging with users and if need be doing some surveys or organsising other reach-out initiatives in the open. Not analytics turned on by default but it's-ok-cause-we-tell-you-we're-fucking-you. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

wfunction 10y ago
> The EU approach to privacy (eroded by lobyying and lack of control over US companies) is that citizens have a right over their information. They can ask what personal information a company has on them, ask that it be corrected or deleted. This has resulted in companies that are more careful with data. More like, this has resulted in things like nonsensical "Cookie warnings" that only waste the user's time.
- DonHopkins 10y ago
  Not entirely. I've learned to read the word "cookie" in many different languages.
- Semaphor 10y ago
  It has resulted in a lot of good things. Cookie consent is most certainly not one of them.

eveningcoffee 10y ago

>Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites, using the same technology. So what? No, it is not so what. This is a major problem with Google instead. The fact that a single company can track majority of the web traffic is a huge risk.

bnegreve 10y ago

> Some of the times it's to make the product better, or better targeted. Some other times it's just for spying on the users. Let's stop complaining These kinds of complains are fine, I don't think we should stop them. It's a bit like corruption in politics, it's not going to be solved anytime soon, but complains do raise awareness and prevent abuses. Who know what's going to happen if we stop complaining?

belorn 10y ago

> Will you choose to make its progress slower because of no real security reason? No real security reason? We can test that. The developer who added this feature can easy earn trust in such statement by changing the disclaimer and making themselves liable if information extracted through this mechanism causes any identifiable harm. If this is a sure bet, no risk, perfectly guarantied to be safe, then such change should be trivial.

codedokode 10y ago

Is tracking user's actions the only way to improve software? That is not what one would expect from free and open source software project. If developers needs an information about how user uses a program, they should ask them to help.

CJefferson 10y ago
this is going to sound insulting, but have you tried being an open-source developer? I've worked on products with tens of thousands of users, and the vast majority of those users never communicate. Worse (in my opinion), the users who communicate most tend to be experts, leading to programs tending to become better for expert users, and worse for beginners / occasional users -- see for example how many linux programs have options you can turn on to make them more user-friendly, but of course as a beginner how do you find them?
- codedokode 10y ago
  If you look at Google Play Store you will see a lot of comments from non-expert users (you can easily see it from their messages). Maybe that is because writing a comment in Play Store is easier than subscribing to a mailing list many projects still use or registering in a forum. Also maybe they do not say anything because everything works ok for them?
- userbinator 10y ago
  Worse (in my opinion), the users who communicate most tend to be experts, leading to programs tending to become better for expert users, and worse for beginners / occasional users On the other hand, not listening to users but analytics leads to dumbed-down inflexible programs that can't get out of their own way for expert users. If you have "tens of thousands of users" and most of them don't communicate, I'd call that successful. They're satisfied.
- hueving 10y ago
  >I've worked on products with tens of thousands of users, and the vast majority of those users never communicate. And your answer to that is to spy on them unless they read fine-grained details that even the generally expert users on this site missed?

majewsky 10y ago

> Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites, using the same technology. So what? For websites, there's a standard process for blocking this shit. For desktop applications, there isn't.

Nursie 10y ago

Opt Out is scammy. Command line tools do not usually do this at all, particularly FOSS command line tools. This is a very worrying development and reduces my trust in FOSS. --edit-- to whoever downvoted me, can you explain why? I love FOSS but I also lovemy privacy. I have come to generally have a default level of trust for popular FOSS projects. Things like this make me question that trust. Why is this wrong?

AsyncAwait 10y ago
> This is a very worrying development Agreed. > reduces my trust in FOSS Please don't distrust a whole category because of a single tool. Most FOSS tools don't do this, especially if they're "Free Software" as opposed to just being "open-source", since "Free Software" indicates a moral, not just practical stance on software.
- Nursie 10y ago
  Well perhaps my assumptions about well-known and widely used open source stuff were just too naive. I guess I'm not really thinking "distrust them like they actively include malware" just that it looks like I need to at least keep a look out for stuff like this. I love FOSS. I believe in it, I use it all the time, I've made a few minor contributions here and there too. It's not like I'm saying "OMG FOSS is teh evil!", just that maybe my trust level was calibrated a little high :)

hueving 10y ago

>Yes we know. brew tells you that. And you can disable it. No, we don't know. This article wouldn't have hit the front page if it wasn't subtle and user-hostile by default (opt-out). >Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites, using the same technology. So what? Brew is not a website, it's a CLI tool. People expect this behavior of websites, not of sysadmin tools. How would you feel if you found out your compiler shipped off a copy of your code to a remote server each time you encountered a compiler error "to improve the compiler" and you had to opt out of this behavior? >Some of the times it's to make the product better, or better targeted. Some other times it's just for spying on the users. It's always spying, regardless of the motivation. >How do we expect open source to become better if everyone is being a crybaby because brew got a history of how often they do brew update? Somehow open source has functioned all of these years without silently harvesting users' usage data. I don't know how new you are to open source, but this is definitely not the way you do QA for an open source project.

JakeTheAndroid 10y ago
That's a bit extreme. A compiler sending your codebase has potential IP implications. Sending your brew commands back to brew is much different. What commands do you run in brew that isn't specific to brew? Whereas, compiling code is a very specific-to-you scenario. If brew fails, it's likely to be caused by brew itself or a package that is part of the repository. If you your compiler runs into an issue, it's not inherent to the compiler necessarily. I'm not a fan of brew at all, and I can't really find the malice here. Either opt out, stop using brew, or accept it. Why are you on OSX if you care that much about your package manager anyways? Ive worked at many companies, and any that let you choose a MacBook will let you opt for a Linux laptop instead (YMMV I guess).

mikemcquaid 10y ago

> Some of the times it's to make the product better, or better targeted. Homebrew lead maintainer here. This is exactly why we do it. To repeat myself from below: we're chronically understaffed and underfunded. > Furthermore, now that you know, for brew specifically, will you opt out? It's worth noting: if everyone who uses a niche piece of software opt-out when it breaks we'll look at our analytics and likely remove it from Homebrew instead of fixing it. This may be unfair but given the amount of work: we need ways to prioritise. Analytics have helped us do that so we can prioritise fixes on things that are critical for many people.

quesera 10y ago
You do not need telemetry from everyone to make informed decisions like this. If just 1% of users opt-in to telemetry, you would have more than enough data for a representative sample set. This is the whole point. You can do the right thing without any loss of data usefulness. So why persist in doing the wrong thing??
- tn6o 10y ago
  And then the 1% will start complaining. "Why me?" The team behind Brew is doing a great job and if analytics can help them do a better job, then be it. Nobody is forcing you to use it and opting out is simple enough.
Tepix 10y ago
Does it have to be Google, the company that already sucks up the most information about pretty much everyone on the internet? Why don't you send the data to your own machines?
- mikemcquaid 10y ago
  We don't have our own machines that are capable of handling this. If you're offering to host them for us for at least two years for free: get in touch.
  - 10y ago

draw_down 10y ago

Right, as if the feds are coming to get me because they know I installed ImageMagick. Oh no.

hartator 10y ago
I have a friend that uses IM to generate memes. So, yeah IM can be used by dissidents. :)

adrianlmm 10y ago

And why not make it opt in instead of the contrary?

aclsid 10y ago

It takes almost zero effort to implement Piwik instead of giving all your data to Google. A simple donate button will take care of the costs of a $15 per month shared server for this purpose. Really that is all it takes. Everything else just goes against the fundamentals of open source software, which is, respect user rights.

fs111 10y ago

> Data is being sent to Google everytime you do almost anything in almost all websites, using the same technology. So what? not on browsers I control

Chris2048 10y ago

> you can disable it if you know about it > There are many more that do the same things without telling you This makes it right? > Will you choose to make its progress slower because of no real security reason Some will, you think it's OK not to give them the choice? > How do we expect open source to become better Is opt-in that hard?