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Do you use brew? Have you contributed code to it? Have you installed something using brew, before updating brew for a while? For me, my answers are yes no yes.
by pvinis 10y ago
Do you use brew?
Have you contributed code to it?
Have you installed something using brew, before updating brew for a while?
For me, my answers are yes no yes. A while ago, you did that, and you get an old version of the thing you just installed. With analytics, they saw that many people forget to update before installing after a while, so they added an update step in that case.
I call that progress, no matter how small. I didn't change that and to you didn't change that. The brew devs changed that. Maybe they would have changed it anyway later.. Who knows. But the fact that brew because a tiny tiny bit better because of analytics, in part from me, makes me a happier user. Now I don't need to remember to update before installing.
Of course it's not the best way to "contribute", but it's something. Definitely better than "contributing" your data to companies, like you said.
- majewsky 10y agoI can totally see the benefits of telemetry. But it would be way less phishy if it were opt-in, or at least opt-out with a very visible information message.
- codedokode 10y agoOpt-out is what commecrial companies do because they do not respect their users' privacy. Free open source software should do the opposite. By the way I think that browser history should be disabled by default too.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoBrowser history is useful to user (but maybe the access to it could be restricted by means of authentication). I'm fine with off-line browser history that's accessible only to the user (and not JS running on a website). But sending any of it over the wire should definitely be opt-in.
- codedokode 10y agoAn unexperienced user might not know that the history is recorded and later can be accidently seen for example by other member of the family. A good software would not allow that. I remember some IM app for linux had history turned off by default. I was really surprised then.
- CJefferson 10y agoThe problem with this is, do you want every program you ever use, to start prompting you with a series of questions about various opt-in / opt-out questions? I get annoyed enough that gnu parallel keeps asking me about citing it, and that's one program. Bash would like to record analyitics. y/n/more information > y > ls *.c ls would like to record information about how you use it. y/n/more information. > y file1.c file2.c file3.c > grep 'string' *.c grep would like to record some information about your usage. y/n/more information. > y file1.c:8: string > vim file1.c vim would like to record information usage, to help improve vim in future. y/n/more information. > y The 'C' package in vim would like to ...
- codedokode 10y agoOpt-in can be implemented other way without questions. For example, user could set an environment variable or type a command.
- smonff 10y agoOh, no!
- CJefferson 10y agoThen we hit the problem that if we don't push that request at users, probably a tiny fraction will turn it on. Worse, that fraction will be the statistically unusual people who bother reading and finding such options, meaning we can't derive any statistically useful results about the user base from them!
- codedokode 10y agoMaybe you should ask them better. For example you could ask for help on the home page of your project or in the beginning of a tutorial. Or maybe they do not want to paticipate. Is it right to ignore this and turn analytics on by default?
- 10y ago
- iuguy 10y agoWhy do they need to use Google Analytics and hand information over to a third party instead of using something hosted? I get that there may be money involved, but presumably self-hosting also gives them more of the information to build out what they need.
- pvinis 10y agoI agree completely with you and majewsky below.
- emartinelli 10y agoIn another comment in this thread by @mikemcquaid (Homebrew lead maintainer): > (...)and have been trying to find people who will provide us with non-Google hosting but: we're chronically understaffed and underfunded[1] [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035438
- Chris2048 10y agoThe issue here is not contribution, but forced/unnanounced contribution. Would it be ok if I steal from your wallet to contribute to Homebrew?
- hyperbovine 10y agoCome now, a bajillion other software projects have "figured out" that people forget to update everything, always, without resorting to this sort of behavior. There's even a whole library, Sparkle, the exists just to solve this problem. Your nonexample of the necessity of analytics merely serves to reinforce the point you are trying to rebut.