7 ms·

Agree, this is a pretty bad deal breaker for me. Big business people doing short-sighted big business things, salivating at cramming a product full of telemetry

by warent 5y ago

Agree, this is a pretty bad deal breaker for me. Big business people doing short-sighted big business things, salivating at cramming a product full of telemetry. All without transparency around it? In a terminal of all things?? Indescribably off-putting and catastrophically damages my trust in the product and the CEO. EDIT: To be fair there is some transparency in the original post. I was looking through the landing page for it (where it is not mentioned). Also, imho it should still be opt-in even for beta. Not everyone is going to read the wall of text to parse out the buried note on telemetry

ushakov 5y ago
or they actually listen to our feedback, remove forced telemetry, remove sign-in in the next release, then i'd be more happy to give their product another chance although no guarantee they'll not turn evil at some point in the future...
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  If they start out evil, then don't expect them to change.
  - nicce 5y ago
    Usually the practice in these scenarios is to try out all possible ways to make out money and then go a little backwards once the public outcry is big enough. At some point you find the most profitable balance situation, before you have expelled all customers.
    - encryptluks2 5y ago
      There is a plethora of free GPU-accelerated terminals. Alacritty, kitty, foot, wezterm, etc. None of these as far as I know send telemetry data. I see no reason to think that a new terminal is going to make money somehow by finding a balance.
      - nicce 5y ago
        My comparison was about business models of these "evil" cases in general, not about terminals particularly. On general, free apps tends to need find a balance how much users can tolerate their "exploitation" and how much they get from the app, if the app maker wants to make some money. I don't personally see any reason to swap terminal with telemetry. One of my worst fears that some day I am forced to.
  - Groxx 5y ago
    Wanting to collect usage information and errors isn't evil-by-default. It's incomparably useful for troubleshooting and improving. Absolutely nothing works better, it's the best by a ridiculously large margin. But yeah, terminals are very sensitive environments, opt-in should be a default even at launch.
    - cestith 5y ago
      I appreciate the balanced, reasonable discussion. I agree both that telemetry is useful and that there's not necessarily a place for it in the tool I use to manage my workstation and hundreds of servers. Perhaps I'd opt in to a middle ground, that is collect telemetry locally into a support file I can review, evaluate, and potentially redact before submission.
    - triska 5y ago
      > Absolutely nothing works better, it's the best by a ridiculously large margin. Is this really the case? It seems that to find mistakes in software for various interaction patterns, truly exhaustive automated tests would likely work far better by various measures (coverage, reliability, reproducibility, reusability etc.) and at the same time do not have the extreme downside of privacy invasion. For example, see a section from the Age of Empires Post Mortem https://www.gamedeveloper.com/pc/the-game-developer-archives-postmortem-ensemble-s-age-of-empires- https://www.gamedeveloper.com/pc/the-game-developer-archives... : "8. We didn’t take enough advantage of automated testing. In the final weeks of development, we set up the game to automatically play up to eight computers against each other. Additionally, a second computer containing the development platform and debugger could monitor each computer that took part. These games, while randomly generated, were logged so that if anything happened, we could reproduce the exact game over and over until we isolated the problem. The games themselves were allowed to run at an accelerated speed and were left running overnight. This was a great success and helped us in isolating very hard to reproduce problems. Our failure was in not doing this earlier in development; it could have saved us a great deal of time and effort. All of our future production plans now include automated testing from Day One."
      - throw10920 5y ago
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Profit motive means that even if they do that now, they're incentivized to collect data in the future. From the standpoint of investors, leaving that revenue stream on the table would be dumb, considering every other company in tech spaces draws revenue from collecting their customers' data. If a company is committed to never spying, then they'd have no problem making such terms contractually binding on their end. Companies that say they're against spying, but leave the option to collect their users' data open for the future, aren't really committed to not spying.
- bongobingo1 5y ago
  > remove forced telemetry, remove sign-in in the next release Then why would anybody bother to invest in their next series?
  - achenet 5y ago
    because they have a growing number of paying customers.
ddoolin 5y ago
This is why I deleted Fig (https://fig.io/ https://fig.io/) right after installing it. It must've sent some uninstall information, too, because the creator/CEO emailed asking why I uninstalled it afterwards...
- mattl 5y ago
  Yikes. No thanks.
- grnmamba 5y ago
  "Send Download link" is a huge red flag. The only reason to have such a button is to send spam.
- Arcuru 5y ago
  Oh yea, Fig is also the one that is Mac only but never mentions that fact anywhere on their website. Everything is written to just presume that the reader is on a Mac. Their getting started instructions [0] are all just terminal commands too, and even that doesn't mention Mac once. [0] - https://fig.io/docs/getting-started https://fig.io/docs/getting-started
  - girvo 5y ago
    > Oh yea, Fig is also the one that is Mac only but never mentions that fact anywhere on their website. Everything is written to just presume that the reader is on a Mac. Not that it is not annoying, it is, but that's pretty common with Mac-only software in my experience.
    - _tom_ 5y ago
      It's even more common with windows-only software.
      - derefr 5y ago
        Every single tool in the console homebrew space, I swear. And it's not like the code isn't portable, it's usually just some command-line / batch thing; but they just don't bother to compile it for anything other than Windows; and then they don't release it as OSS for you to do so, either. The number of things I've had to run under WINE...
alimov 5y ago
They have a complete telemetry section on their website where it also states that no input or output data is collected.
- benmmurphy 5y ago
  the problem with telemetry data is that sometimes you can accidentally collect sensitive data without realising it. i know one library on iOS was collecting the coordinates of all touch events. however, that meant it was collecting the coordinates of all touches on the keyboard which made it possible to reconstruct user input into password fields.
  - alimov 5y ago
    You’re right about there being a problem with it. Which library was/is doing this? Would like to avoid it.
- coldtea 5y ago
  Which is worth nothing if it can't be examined and verified (not to mention it can change with any release).
zachlloyd 5y ago
Hi - as the poster and founder I again completely get the concern. We should make it even more transparent what we collect. You can see it here: https://docs.warp.dev/getting-started/privacy#exhaustive-telemetry-table https://docs.warp.dev/getting-started/privacy#exhaustive-tel... Re: big business, we're still pretty small, but it's true that we are trying to build a business around the command-line. I get that's controversial and it's not something that exists and that the terminal is a super-sensitive low level tool. We will never ever build a business around terminal data, and to be super explicit, we are 100% not collecting any command inputs or outputs. The business that we want to build is around making a terminal (or a platform for text based apps) that grows because it makes individuals and teams a lot more productive on the command line. I've there's one thing I've taken away from this ShowHN so far is that there is a lot of well-founded concern about the terminal and user data and that we need to do a better job on this issue.
- westoncb 5y ago
  Hey Zach, while I think your post is well-intentioned, the contemporary default level of trust around tech companies and data privacy is just very low. As a new entrant to the field, you inherit the default valuation—people have no other info to go off of. Given that, it's probably the case that the only options are to either be fully open source or to make a fully offline mode an option. In any case, I think the concept for your product is excellent—it's been mind-boggling to me that something along these lines wasn't tackled years ago, so I look forward to your guys' future success, hopefully moving the state of terminal interaction into the modern era.
  - ajxs 5y ago
    > ...the contemporary default level of trust around tech companies and data privacy is just very low... It's not just that the level of trust is very low. I shouldn't need to place any trust in the developers of my terminal at all. If I can't know for a fact that it's not acting against my interests, then I'll pass. I already have such a big selection of fully open-source terminals available. Why would I even consider taking any king of risk with this one?

by warent 5y ago

ushakov 5y ago

or they actually listen to our feedback, remove forced telemetry, remove sign-in in the next release, then i'd be more happy to give their product another chance although no guarantee they'll not turn evil at some point in the future...

encryptluks2 5y ago
If they start out evil, then don't expect them to change.
- nicce 5y ago
  Usually the practice in these scenarios is to try out all possible ways to make out money and then go a little backwards once the public outcry is big enough. At some point you find the most profitable balance situation, before you have expelled all customers.
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    There is a plethora of free GPU-accelerated terminals. Alacritty, kitty, foot, wezterm, etc. None of these as far as I know send telemetry data. I see no reason to think that a new terminal is going to make money somehow by finding a balance.
    - nicce 5y ago
      My comparison was about business models of these "evil" cases in general, not about terminals particularly. On general, free apps tends to need find a balance how much users can tolerate their "exploitation" and how much they get from the app, if the app maker wants to make some money. I don't personally see any reason to swap terminal with telemetry. One of my worst fears that some day I am forced to.
- Groxx 5y ago
  Wanting to collect usage information and errors isn't evil-by-default. It's incomparably useful for troubleshooting and improving. Absolutely nothing works better, it's the best by a ridiculously large margin. But yeah, terminals are very sensitive environments, opt-in should be a default even at launch.
  - cestith 5y ago
    I appreciate the balanced, reasonable discussion. I agree both that telemetry is useful and that there's not necessarily a place for it in the tool I use to manage my workstation and hundreds of servers. Perhaps I'd opt in to a middle ground, that is collect telemetry locally into a support file I can review, evaluate, and potentially redact before submission.
  - triska 5y ago
    > Absolutely nothing works better, it's the best by a ridiculously large margin. Is this really the case? It seems that to find mistakes in software for various interaction patterns, truly exhaustive automated tests would likely work far better by various measures (coverage, reliability, reproducibility, reusability etc.) and at the same time do not have the extreme downside of privacy invasion. For example, see a section from the Age of Empires Post Mortem https://www.gamedeveloper.com/pc/the-game-developer-archives-postmortem-ensemble-s-age-of-empires- https://www.gamedeveloper.com/pc/the-game-developer-archives... : "8. We didn’t take enough advantage of automated testing. In the final weeks of development, we set up the game to automatically play up to eight computers against each other. Additionally, a second computer containing the development platform and debugger could monitor each computer that took part. These games, while randomly generated, were logged so that if anything happened, we could reproduce the exact game over and over until we isolated the problem. The games themselves were allowed to run at an accelerated speed and were left running overnight. This was a great success and helped us in isolating very hard to reproduce problems. Our failure was in not doing this earlier in development; it could have saved us a great deal of time and effort. All of our future production plans now include automated testing from Day One."
    - throw10920 5y ago
heavyset_go 5y ago
Profit motive means that even if they do that now, they're incentivized to collect data in the future. From the standpoint of investors, leaving that revenue stream on the table would be dumb, considering every other company in tech spaces draws revenue from collecting their customers' data. If a company is committed to never spying, then they'd have no problem making such terms contractually binding on their end. Companies that say they're against spying, but leave the option to collect their users' data open for the future, aren't really committed to not spying.
bongobingo1 5y ago
> remove forced telemetry, remove sign-in in the next release Then why would anybody bother to invest in their next series?
- achenet 5y ago
  because they have a growing number of paying customers.

ddoolin 5y ago

This is why I deleted Fig (https://fig.io/ https://fig.io/) right after installing it. It must've sent some uninstall information, too, because the creator/CEO emailed asking why I uninstalled it afterwards...

mattl 5y ago
Yikes. No thanks.
grnmamba 5y ago
"Send Download link" is a huge red flag. The only reason to have such a button is to send spam.
Arcuru 5y ago
Oh yea, Fig is also the one that is Mac only but never mentions that fact anywhere on their website. Everything is written to just presume that the reader is on a Mac. Their getting started instructions [0] are all just terminal commands too, and even that doesn't mention Mac once. [0] - https://fig.io/docs/getting-started https://fig.io/docs/getting-started
- girvo 5y ago
  > Oh yea, Fig is also the one that is Mac only but never mentions that fact anywhere on their website. Everything is written to just presume that the reader is on a Mac. Not that it is not annoying, it is, but that's pretty common with Mac-only software in my experience.
  - _tom_ 5y ago
    It's even more common with windows-only software.
    - derefr 5y ago
      Every single tool in the console homebrew space, I swear. And it's not like the code isn't portable, it's usually just some command-line / batch thing; but they just don't bother to compile it for anything other than Windows; and then they don't release it as OSS for you to do so, either. The number of things I've had to run under WINE...

alimov 5y ago

They have a complete telemetry section on their website where it also states that no input or output data is collected.

benmmurphy 5y ago
the problem with telemetry data is that sometimes you can accidentally collect sensitive data without realising it. i know one library on iOS was collecting the coordinates of all touch events. however, that meant it was collecting the coordinates of all touches on the keyboard which made it possible to reconstruct user input into password fields.
- alimov 5y ago
  You’re right about there being a problem with it. Which library was/is doing this? Would like to avoid it.
coldtea 5y ago
Which is worth nothing if it can't be examined and verified (not to mention it can change with any release).

zachlloyd 5y ago

Hi - as the poster and founder I again completely get the concern. We should make it even more transparent what we collect. You can see it here: https://docs.warp.dev/getting-started/privacy#exhaustive-telemetry-table https://docs.warp.dev/getting-started/privacy#exhaustive-tel... Re: big business, we're still pretty small, but it's true that we are trying to build a business around the command-line. I get that's controversial and it's not something that exists and that the terminal is a super-sensitive low level tool. We will never ever build a business around terminal data, and to be super explicit, we are 100% not collecting any command inputs or outputs. The business that we want to build is around making a terminal (or a platform for text based apps) that grows because it makes individuals and teams a lot more productive on the command line. I've there's one thing I've taken away from this ShowHN so far is that there is a lot of well-founded concern about the terminal and user data and that we need to do a better job on this issue.

westoncb 5y ago
Hey Zach, while I think your post is well-intentioned, the contemporary default level of trust around tech companies and data privacy is just very low. As a new entrant to the field, you inherit the default valuation—people have no other info to go off of. Given that, it's probably the case that the only options are to either be fully open source or to make a fully offline mode an option. In any case, I think the concept for your product is excellent—it's been mind-boggling to me that something along these lines wasn't tackled years ago, so I look forward to your guys' future success, hopefully moving the state of terminal interaction into the modern era.
- ajxs 5y ago
  > ...the contemporary default level of trust around tech companies and data privacy is just very low... It's not just that the level of trust is very low. I shouldn't need to place any trust in the developers of my terminal at all. If I can't know for a fact that it's not acting against my interests, then I'll pass. I already have such a big selection of fully open-source terminals available. Why would I even consider taking any king of risk with this one?