3 ms·
The 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
by CJefferson 10y ago
The 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?
- lewiseason 10y agoThe Debian installer gets this right: it prompts you during the install whether it can collect information about installed packages for popcon[1] [1] http://popcon.debian.org/ http://popcon.debian.org/
- majewsky 10y agoI never understood why popcon is necessary. Couldn't you achieve about the same result by just counting downloads on the package mirrors?
- TeMPOraL 10y agoFrankly, that's your problem. I don't see even a true desire to make the software better as a legitimate reason to exfiltrate data from people without asking.
- Nursie 10y agoNo, I want every program I ever use not to leak data about me all over the internet. I'm amazed we're even having this discussion
- sangnoir 10y agoLol, reminds me of what macOS did[1] to me after a recent upgrade: $ git pull (long wait) ^c $ git pull (got distracted and had to leave keyboard for a bit) Can't execute program until you accept xcode license I couldn't believe it. 1. paraphrasing the words
- TeMPOraL 10y agoIf I saw something like that, I'd format my drive and install another OS. The very idea of your shell or file listing program sending analytics to the mothership is ridiculous. They shouldn't be even talking to a network directly. They have a set of well-defined tasks, and spying on you is not one of them.
- tunap 10y ago"The 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?" Simple answer, Yes. It would lead to conversations about the elephant in the room. It also alleviates the assumption I trust all providers(comprehend the EULA/ToS) and puts their actions under scrutiny. If more people realized what data is collected and by whom for whom they could make an informed, cost/benefit choice. Other useful results are, what is the applicability of that data to the project, what characteristics define the 'Trusted Partners' that data is shared with and, possibly, inject some restraint into the collectors' decisions of what to collect. edit: removed unintended paste fragment