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> Like all things, there must be a sense of context and proportionality. This issue is specifically about the .NET Core SDK command line tools. Exactly. Comman

by ptx 8y ago

> Like all things, there must be a sense of context and proportionality. This issue is specifically about the .NET Core SDK command line tools. Exactly. Command line tools don't usually collect your data and send it off somewhere without asking. You wouldn't expect ls, cat and grep to spy on you. That's why it's so surprising. But even big interactive applications like IDEs don't normally do this without asking. IntelliJ had a dialog pop up just a few days ago to ask me nicely to participate, defaulting to non-participation (!). Visual Studio and Office used to do the same thing, as I recall. (Additionally, once you figure out how to opt-out in .NET Core, does it tell you somehow that you did so successfully? I think I've set the environment variable correctly, but how can I be sure?)

josteink 8y ago
> Exactly. Command line tools don't usually collect your data and send it off somewhere without asking. You wouldn't expect ls, cat and grep to spy on you. That's why it's so surprising. Except in Ubuntu Linux where apt-get it has done so for ages without anyone complaining: https://askubuntu.com/questions/57808/what-is-the-popularity-contest-package-for#57811 https://askubuntu.com/questions/57808/what-is-the-popularity...
- ptx 8y ago
  Has it? It says right on the page you're linking to that it's disabled by default, so you would have to explicitly opt in. Thus nobody complaining, as those who don't want it won't enable it. I think it comes from Debian[1] actually, where it's also opt-in – my Debian machine doesn't have it installed. Like it says in the Debian package description: "Vote for your favourite packages automatically". It's voting, not spying – strictly voluntary. Those of us who don't want to vote don't have to. [1] https://popcon.debian.org/ https://popcon.debian.org/
  - josteink 8y ago
    > it's disabled by default Fair enough, but it wasn’t always like that. > “Vote for your favourite packages automatically". It's voting, not spying That’s just playing with words. What it does is exactly the same: provide the upstream author statistics about what is being used and not. Surely you can’t mean that this is a serious argument.
    - ptx 8y ago
      My argument is in the part of the sentence you didn't quote. When people go to vote for their government, is that implemented by sending government agents to eavesdrop on people's conversations to suss out what their political preference might be? No. People voluntarily (this is the core of my analogy) go to vote, to make their voice heard. That's the difference between voting and spying. Of course, if popcon were enabled by default, then that would be different and not like voting at all! But that's not what it said on the page you linked.

by ptx 8y ago

josteink 8y ago

> Exactly. Command line tools don't usually collect your data and send it off somewhere without asking. You wouldn't expect ls, cat and grep to spy on you. That's why it's so surprising. Except in Ubuntu Linux where apt-get it has done so for ages without anyone complaining: https://askubuntu.com/questions/57808/what-is-the-popularity-contest-package-for#57811 https://askubuntu.com/questions/57808/what-is-the-popularity...

ptx 8y ago
Has it? It says right on the page you're linking to that it's disabled by default, so you would have to explicitly opt in. Thus nobody complaining, as those who don't want it won't enable it. I think it comes from Debian[1] actually, where it's also opt-in – my Debian machine doesn't have it installed. Like it says in the Debian package description: "Vote for your favourite packages automatically". It's voting, not spying – strictly voluntary. Those of us who don't want to vote don't have to. [1] https://popcon.debian.org/ https://popcon.debian.org/
- josteink 8y ago
  > it's disabled by default Fair enough, but it wasn’t always like that. > “Vote for your favourite packages automatically". It's voting, not spying That’s just playing with words. What it does is exactly the same: provide the upstream author statistics about what is being used and not. Surely you can’t mean that this is a serious argument.
  - ptx 8y ago
    My argument is in the part of the sentence you didn't quote. When people go to vote for their government, is that implemented by sending government agents to eavesdrop on people's conversations to suss out what their political preference might be? No. People voluntarily (this is the core of my analogy) go to vote, to make their voice heard. That's the difference between voting and spying. Of course, if popcon were enabled by default, then that would be different and not like voting at all! But that's not what it said on the page you linked.