11 ms·

I don't see how it is immoral at all. It's not like they are adding some malware in the binary. From the sound of it, the only "closed" part is configuration, l

I don't see how it is immoral at all. It's not like they are adding some malware in the binary. From the sound of it, the only "closed" part is configuration, like the endpoints for telemetry API. As far as I am concerned, telemetry is a good thing. Unless you are very paranoid, I don't see a good reason to disable it. Telemetry makes it possible for your usage patterns to influence the development of the product, which is beneficial for you as a user.

danvayn 4y ago
best reason? it's laggy on my computer. it's not a good user experience for me. it's clear that a non telemetric solution just performs better, atleast on my end.
- eterevsky 4y ago
  I am pretty sure telemetry is sent asynchronously and shouldn't affect editor's performance. Also, if you have your doubts, you can easily opt out. It's very visible in the Settings.
  - giancarlostoro 4y ago
    It's interesting they see a noticeable difference. I don't think it's the calls themselves that cause the latency, probably all the code trying to figure out every single thing you're doing within VS Code to send over.
codedokode 4y ago
> telemetry is a good thing It is good only if it is "opt in". But in the wild we see that lot of software doesn't even provide an opt out and doesn't warn about telemetry when installing or starting a program. If it is such a good thing, why developers prefer not to disclose its usage?
- kristiandupont 4y ago
  >It is good only if it is "opt in" Why? This isn't a product marketed to kids using dark patterns or something. People who feel like you do can easily opt out. >If it is such a good thing, why developers prefer not to disclose its usage? Maybe because they feel that it's not that big a deal. They could also "disclose" that the app uses X amount of harddisk space or memory, or that it was built by developers who are running Windows as their primary OS. That might be a deal breaker to some, but most people probably don't care.
  - microtonal 4y ago
    Why? This isn't a product marketed to kids using dark patterns or something. People who feel like you do can easily opt out. IANAL, but if you make the product available in the EU, you are required to make telemetry opt-in if there is personally identifiable information, or you'll violate the GDPR. Note that according to interpretations of various EU bodies, PII also means information that could be correlated to persons, like randomly generated identifiers (not just obviously PII information like an e-mail address or IP address).
    - eterevsky 4y ago
      If this weren't legal I doubt it would've been distributed the way it is.
      - microtonal 4y ago
        I think that is somewhat naive. The general approach of big tech has been: let's just break the rules until we get a slap on the wrist. It's not like privacy authorities are going to charge them with 4% of the annual turnover the first time. Besides that, they probably have bigger fish to fry than some program that is used by a tiny subset of the general population.
        eterevsky 4y ago
        As someone working in big tech, this is very far from truth. In any questionable case there are endless legal and privacy reviews that catch 99% of possible transgressions. What you see is the 1% that slipped through this process. > Besides that, they probably have bigger fish to fry than some program that is used by a tiny subset of the general population. That's exactly the reason why MS would be on the safe side and not break any laws in this case. They could be a bit more daring if it benefitted them, but in this case there's literally no benefit except improving the software that they are giving out for free.
paskozdilar 4y ago
> I don't see how it is immoral at all. Proprietary software is immoral in general, because it takes away the user's freedom to do their computing as they wish. If I cannot turn off a feature of a program I use, then the developers can do whatever the hell they want with my machine, especially if we count in auto-updates. I am not comfortable with that.
- rad_gruchalski 4y ago
  You know, there are people who consciously select proprietary software because, for example, they don’t want to deal with complexities of managing it. They simply don’t care. They value their relationship with a supplier and care only that it works. Such dogmatic views like “proprietary software is immoral” do not help anyone. You have a choice not to use any of it but don’t cross off people who choose otherwise. Software engineers in vast majority do not live from donations. You are lucky enough to make it from open source? Well, good for you! You are very privileged.
  - darkwater 4y ago
    > Such dogmatic views like “proprietary software is immoral” do not help anyone. You have a choice not to use any of it but don’t cross off people who choose otherwise. Saying that proprietary software is moral is just as dogmatic, no?
    - goodpoint 4y ago
      And, on top of that, it's false. Downvoted to -1 for not liking some faux-open-source stuff. So much for the hacker spirit of "hacker" news!
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
      No, it's only logical. Immoral is an extreme form of perverse and malevolent morality, or the lack of it. Moral simply means "all the spectrum of things that are not immoral", or not immoral, which is a much larger category with a lot more nuances. Immoral is also a subjective judgment, morality changes according to time, place, culture etc Let's talk about ethics next time So labeling something you don't like immoral is as dogmatic as labeling the abortion immoral just because 3 thousand years ago some guy wrote it in a book of fiction, while thinking that is not immoral means, in the majority of the cases, having no such strong opinion on other people's decisions, which we would consider the "obvious" choice not the dogmatic one.
nickjj 4y ago
> From the sound of it, the only "closed" part is configuration, like the endpoints for telemetry API. I don't want to mention things I'm not 100% sure of but aren't fairly critical components of the editor itself not open source? For example the Remote Containers feature and certain LSP related functionality are closed source? I remember there being some chat about this on HN where the general sentiment was they are benefiting from open source for a lot of LSP related features but decided not to open source some functionality they've added to their LSP implementation?
Seirdy 4y ago
Being enrolled in a study should require prior informed consent. Terms of the data collection, including what data can be collected and how that data will be used, must be presented to all participants in language they can understand. Only then can they provide informed consent. Harvesting data without permission is just exploitation. Software improvements and user engagement are not more important than basic respect for user agency. Moreover, not everyone is like you. People who do have reason to care about data collection should not have their critical needs outweighed for the mere convenience of the majority. This type of rhetoric is often used to dismiss accessibility concerns, which is why we have to turn to legislation. (POSSE from https://seirdy.one/notes/2022/06/03/opt-in-telemetry/ https://seirdy.one/notes/2022/06/03/opt-in-telemetry/)
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  not to defend VS Code telemetry, but it's clearly stated in terms anyone can understand (something many OSS projects fail to deliver) https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry
- MathCodeLove 4y ago
  "should not have their critical needs outweighed for the mere convenience of the majority" I *strongly* disagree here. A small subsection of the population should not be able to impose their self-percieved "needs" on the remaining 99%. You're the individuals who care about this, it's your responsibility to put in the necessary foot work. It's incredibly arrogant and presumptuous to try and argue that any overwhelming minorities desires should be seen as needs and imposed upon everyone else and drawing a comparison to accessibility is disingenuous at best. You aren't literally unable to use an application because they don't spell out every bit of minutia regarding their telemetry, nor are you born with physical/mental disadvantages that somehow necessitate your privacy policy desires. No one is preventing you from monitoring your own network activity, sandboxing your machine, using a VPN, or a multitude of other steps you can take to monitor and protect your privacy.
  - cto_of_antifa 4y ago
Xelbair 4y ago
>not adding malware >adding telemetry Pick one and only one. Any form of telemetry should be clearly documented - what it does gather, when, and in what events, and disabled by default(opt-in model). And module gathering it should be open source. It shouldn't be something that's based on trust, trust that it won't be abused. There were enough leaks, or news that, under guise of 'telemetry', a lot of unrelated data was gathered, without consent. Frankly Microsoft has been open in this regard, but as you seem to generalize, i'll allow myself to do it too.
- darkcha0s 4y ago
  It is: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry
  - Xelbair 4y ago
    As i said, as previous poster was generalizing, so was I. Microsoft, at least with vscode, is open about that - but what about other products?
- eterevsky 4y ago
  It is clearly documented and the code is open source. When X does something bad under guise of Y, it doesn't mean that Y is bad, it means that X is bad. If I introduce myself as a plumber and then rob you, you shouldn't blame plumbers. So either you accept that this telemetry is just telemetry and then you shouldn't have a problem with it, or you are claiming that MS is doing something malicious under the guise of gathering telemetry, and in that case you need to provide some evidence to support it.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    The evidence is the entire history of Microsoft's shitty behaviour, including the very recent Microsoft Purview Classifiers. You're the frog, they're the scorpian.
    - 4y ago
thejammahimself 4y ago
It's been ages since I last used VSCode but I do recall the C# debugger being nonfree, and only licensed for Visual Studio branded software (which would exclude your own builds of code). I also recall a post of someone being unable to use the Python extension because they had an 'unofficial build' of code. So unless things have changed a lot since I last used it, it would seem that the program itself is open source but some extensions that you sort of need in order to get on with your work are non-free.
- eterevsky 4y ago
  Does it mean that those extensions don't work on VSCodium? I find it doubtful.
  - worble 4y ago
    Yes, they are built specifically to not work outside of Microsofts binaries: You may only use the Microsoft .NET Core Debugger (vsdbg) with Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio or Visual Studio for Mac software to help you develop and test your applications. ------------------------------------------------------------------- see: https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/82 https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/82 https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/2491#issuecomment-418811364 https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/2491#is...
always2slow 4y ago
>It's not like they are adding some malware in the binary. They are though, telemetry is malware. >As far as I am concerned, telemetry is a good thing. Unless you are very paranoid, I don't see a good reason to disable it. Oh. Well I guess I disagree. Telemetry is malware and a bad thing. Unless you can examine what's being sent and have the ultimate choice of what's shared and when. The only reason to collect data surreptitiously is if you're a creep and up to no good.
- artificialLimbs 4y ago
  >> Unless you can examine what's being sent and have the ultimate choice of what's shared and when. You do have choice. Use VSCodium or don’t install vscode at all. >> The only reason to collect data surreptitiously is if you're a creep and up to no good. Or you want to improve your program.
- eterevsky 4y ago
  > Unless you can examine what's being sent You can: telemetry code is open source. For a more detailed reports like crash reports you usually can see the full report and approve it before sending. > The only reason to collect data surreptitiously It's not surreptitious at all.
  - digisign 4y ago
    Microsoft has been caught disregarding consent and engaging in dark patterns... too many times to list here. There's also no way to keep on top of what tens of thousands of employees are doing, or what a present or future CEO might decide. These blanket statements are therefore not compelling.

danvayn 4y ago

best reason? it's laggy on my computer. it's not a good user experience for me. it's clear that a non telemetric solution just performs better, atleast on my end.

eterevsky 4y ago
I am pretty sure telemetry is sent asynchronously and shouldn't affect editor's performance. Also, if you have your doubts, you can easily opt out. It's very visible in the Settings.
- giancarlostoro 4y ago
  It's interesting they see a noticeable difference. I don't think it's the calls themselves that cause the latency, probably all the code trying to figure out every single thing you're doing within VS Code to send over.

codedokode 4y ago

> telemetry is a good thing It is good only if it is "opt in". But in the wild we see that lot of software doesn't even provide an opt out and doesn't warn about telemetry when installing or starting a program. If it is such a good thing, why developers prefer not to disclose its usage?

kristiandupont 4y ago
>It is good only if it is "opt in" Why? This isn't a product marketed to kids using dark patterns or something. People who feel like you do can easily opt out. >If it is such a good thing, why developers prefer not to disclose its usage? Maybe because they feel that it's not that big a deal. They could also "disclose" that the app uses X amount of harddisk space or memory, or that it was built by developers who are running Windows as their primary OS. That might be a deal breaker to some, but most people probably don't care.
- microtonal 4y ago
  Why? This isn't a product marketed to kids using dark patterns or something. People who feel like you do can easily opt out. IANAL, but if you make the product available in the EU, you are required to make telemetry opt-in if there is personally identifiable information, or you'll violate the GDPR. Note that according to interpretations of various EU bodies, PII also means information that could be correlated to persons, like randomly generated identifiers (not just obviously PII information like an e-mail address or IP address).
  - eterevsky 4y ago
    If this weren't legal I doubt it would've been distributed the way it is.
    - microtonal 4y ago
      I think that is somewhat naive. The general approach of big tech has been: let's just break the rules until we get a slap on the wrist. It's not like privacy authorities are going to charge them with 4% of the annual turnover the first time. Besides that, they probably have bigger fish to fry than some program that is used by a tiny subset of the general population.
      - eterevsky 4y ago
        As someone working in big tech, this is very far from truth. In any questionable case there are endless legal and privacy reviews that catch 99% of possible transgressions. What you see is the 1% that slipped through this process. > Besides that, they probably have bigger fish to fry than some program that is used by a tiny subset of the general population. That's exactly the reason why MS would be on the safe side and not break any laws in this case. They could be a bit more daring if it benefitted them, but in this case there's literally no benefit except improving the software that they are giving out for free.

paskozdilar 4y ago

> I don't see how it is immoral at all. Proprietary software is immoral in general, because it takes away the user's freedom to do their computing as they wish. If I cannot turn off a feature of a program I use, then the developers can do whatever the hell they want with my machine, especially if we count in auto-updates. I am not comfortable with that.

rad_gruchalski 4y ago
You know, there are people who consciously select proprietary software because, for example, they don’t want to deal with complexities of managing it. They simply don’t care. They value their relationship with a supplier and care only that it works. Such dogmatic views like “proprietary software is immoral” do not help anyone. You have a choice not to use any of it but don’t cross off people who choose otherwise. Software engineers in vast majority do not live from donations. You are lucky enough to make it from open source? Well, good for you! You are very privileged.
- darkwater 4y ago
  > Such dogmatic views like “proprietary software is immoral” do not help anyone. You have a choice not to use any of it but don’t cross off people who choose otherwise. Saying that proprietary software is moral is just as dogmatic, no?
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    And, on top of that, it's false. Downvoted to -1 for not liking some faux-open-source stuff. So much for the hacker spirit of "hacker" news!
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    No, it's only logical. Immoral is an extreme form of perverse and malevolent morality, or the lack of it. Moral simply means "all the spectrum of things that are not immoral", or not immoral, which is a much larger category with a lot more nuances. Immoral is also a subjective judgment, morality changes according to time, place, culture etc Let's talk about ethics next time So labeling something you don't like immoral is as dogmatic as labeling the abortion immoral just because 3 thousand years ago some guy wrote it in a book of fiction, while thinking that is not immoral means, in the majority of the cases, having no such strong opinion on other people's decisions, which we would consider the "obvious" choice not the dogmatic one.

nickjj 4y ago

> From the sound of it, the only "closed" part is configuration, like the endpoints for telemetry API. I don't want to mention things I'm not 100% sure of but aren't fairly critical components of the editor itself not open source? For example the Remote Containers feature and certain LSP related functionality are closed source? I remember there being some chat about this on HN where the general sentiment was they are benefiting from open source for a lot of LSP related features but decided not to open source some functionality they've added to their LSP implementation?

Seirdy 4y ago

Being enrolled in a study should require prior informed consent. Terms of the data collection, including what data can be collected and how that data will be used, must be presented to all participants in language they can understand. Only then can they provide informed consent. Harvesting data without permission is just exploitation. Software improvements and user engagement are not more important than basic respect for user agency. Moreover, not everyone is like you. People who do have reason to care about data collection should not have their critical needs outweighed for the mere convenience of the majority. This type of rhetoric is often used to dismiss accessibility concerns, which is why we have to turn to legislation. (POSSE from https://seirdy.one/notes/2022/06/03/opt-in-telemetry/ https://seirdy.one/notes/2022/06/03/opt-in-telemetry/)

peoplefromibiza 4y ago
not to defend VS Code telemetry, but it's clearly stated in terms anyone can understand (something many OSS projects fail to deliver) https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry
MathCodeLove 4y ago
"should not have their critical needs outweighed for the mere convenience of the majority" I *strongly* disagree here. A small subsection of the population should not be able to impose their self-percieved "needs" on the remaining 99%. You're the individuals who care about this, it's your responsibility to put in the necessary foot work. It's incredibly arrogant and presumptuous to try and argue that any overwhelming minorities desires should be seen as needs and imposed upon everyone else and drawing a comparison to accessibility is disingenuous at best. You aren't literally unable to use an application because they don't spell out every bit of minutia regarding their telemetry, nor are you born with physical/mental disadvantages that somehow necessitate your privacy policy desires. No one is preventing you from monitoring your own network activity, sandboxing your machine, using a VPN, or a multitude of other steps you can take to monitor and protect your privacy.
- cto_of_antifa 4y ago

Xelbair 4y ago

>not adding malware >adding telemetry Pick one and only one. Any form of telemetry should be clearly documented - what it does gather, when, and in what events, and disabled by default(opt-in model). And module gathering it should be open source. It shouldn't be something that's based on trust, trust that it won't be abused. There were enough leaks, or news that, under guise of 'telemetry', a lot of unrelated data was gathered, without consent. Frankly Microsoft has been open in this regard, but as you seem to generalize, i'll allow myself to do it too.

darkcha0s 4y ago
It is: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry
- Xelbair 4y ago
  As i said, as previous poster was generalizing, so was I. Microsoft, at least with vscode, is open about that - but what about other products?
eterevsky 4y ago
It is clearly documented and the code is open source. When X does something bad under guise of Y, it doesn't mean that Y is bad, it means that X is bad. If I introduce myself as a plumber and then rob you, you shouldn't blame plumbers. So either you accept that this telemetry is just telemetry and then you shouldn't have a problem with it, or you are claiming that MS is doing something malicious under the guise of gathering telemetry, and in that case you need to provide some evidence to support it.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  The evidence is the entire history of Microsoft's shitty behaviour, including the very recent Microsoft Purview Classifiers. You're the frog, they're the scorpian.
  - 4y ago

thejammahimself 4y ago

It's been ages since I last used VSCode but I do recall the C# debugger being nonfree, and only licensed for Visual Studio branded software (which would exclude your own builds of code). I also recall a post of someone being unable to use the Python extension because they had an 'unofficial build' of code. So unless things have changed a lot since I last used it, it would seem that the program itself is open source but some extensions that you sort of need in order to get on with your work are non-free.

eterevsky 4y ago
Does it mean that those extensions don't work on VSCodium? I find it doubtful.
- worble 4y ago
  Yes, they are built specifically to not work outside of Microsofts binaries: You may only use the Microsoft .NET Core Debugger (vsdbg) with Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio or Visual Studio for Mac software to help you develop and test your applications. ------------------------------------------------------------------- see: https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/82 https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/82 https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/2491#issuecomment-418811364 https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/2491#is...

always2slow 4y ago

>It's not like they are adding some malware in the binary. They are though, telemetry is malware. >As far as I am concerned, telemetry is a good thing. Unless you are very paranoid, I don't see a good reason to disable it. Oh. Well I guess I disagree. Telemetry is malware and a bad thing. Unless you can examine what's being sent and have the ultimate choice of what's shared and when. The only reason to collect data surreptitiously is if you're a creep and up to no good.

artificialLimbs 4y ago
>> Unless you can examine what's being sent and have the ultimate choice of what's shared and when. You do have choice. Use VSCodium or don’t install vscode at all. >> The only reason to collect data surreptitiously is if you're a creep and up to no good. Or you want to improve your program.
eterevsky 4y ago
> Unless you can examine what's being sent You can: telemetry code is open source. For a more detailed reports like crash reports you usually can see the full report and approve it before sending. > The only reason to collect data surreptitiously It's not surreptitious at all.
- digisign 4y ago
  Microsoft has been caught disregarding consent and engaging in dark patterns... too many times to list here. There's also no way to keep on top of what tens of thousands of employees are doing, or what a present or future CEO might decide. These blanket statements are therefore not compelling.