4 ms·

Very much against this. Sure, it sounds naive enough, and can give reasons why. But I have 3,436 items in /usr/bin. What if -every- one of these started doin

Very much against this. Sure, it sounds naive enough, and can give reasons why. But I have 3,436 items in /usr/bin. What if -every- one of these started doing their own telemetry, their own envvars, etc? If we have to deal with telemetry, then I'd instead hope that there can exist a single telemetry systemwide interface. Not sure how that would be designed or implemented, but would be better than everyone doing their own bespoke thing. Plus easier for me to disable them all in one go.

jodrellblank 4y ago
> "What if -every- one of these started doing their own telemetry, their own envvars, etc?" What bad thing are you suggesting would happen if they did? Your computer and internet connection can't handle four thousand strings or four thousand HTTP POSTS, or four MB more disk space of telemetry libraries? I bet it can. This isn't a technical problem, it's a control and consent problem.
- Macha 4y ago
  I wouldn't be so sure it's not also a technical problem, the limit of execve can be as low as 128kb which for 4,000 strings gives a maximum of 32 characters per NAME=VALUE environment value
  - jodrellblank 4y ago
    Free disk space can be as low as zero, but we don't blame the tool makers for adding an extra 100Kb or 20MB, we blame the computer owner for not having enough disk space to install the thing they chose. Wrapper scripts for every utility to do UTIL_TELEMETRY_OPT_OUT=1 util ... so they don't need to be set all at once.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      > we don't blame the tool makers for adding an extra 100Kb or 20MB Honestly, I do. Code bloat is a real thing.
      - jodrellblank 4y ago
        Honestly, I do too, but the world doesn't. If you said "I have 3,500 binaries on my system, imagine if they ALL added 1MB" the reply would be "3.5GB is about twenty cents of NVME storage space" not "oh my, you're right that would be intolerable".
- tveita 4y ago
  For one thing a classic way of downplaying metrics, "we're only logging X bits of information", turns into 3000*X. And here X is huge already. If I get access to detailed metrics from go, gcc, make, tar, gzip, bash, python... of course I can tell which programs you have been running (and frankly, I'm disgusted)
arccy 4y ago
maybe the problem is why do you need 3436 binaries there?

jodrellblank 4y ago

> "What if -every- one of these started doing their own telemetry, their own envvars, etc?" What bad thing are you suggesting would happen if they did? Your computer and internet connection can't handle four thousand strings or four thousand HTTP POSTS, or four MB more disk space of telemetry libraries? I bet it can. This isn't a technical problem, it's a control and consent problem.

Macha 4y ago
I wouldn't be so sure it's not also a technical problem, the limit of execve can be as low as 128kb which for 4,000 strings gives a maximum of 32 characters per NAME=VALUE environment value
- jodrellblank 4y ago
  Free disk space can be as low as zero, but we don't blame the tool makers for adding an extra 100Kb or 20MB, we blame the computer owner for not having enough disk space to install the thing they chose. Wrapper scripts for every utility to do UTIL_TELEMETRY_OPT_OUT=1 util ... so they don't need to be set all at once.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > we don't blame the tool makers for adding an extra 100Kb or 20MB Honestly, I do. Code bloat is a real thing.
    - jodrellblank 4y ago
      Honestly, I do too, but the world doesn't. If you said "I have 3,500 binaries on my system, imagine if they ALL added 1MB" the reply would be "3.5GB is about twenty cents of NVME storage space" not "oh my, you're right that would be intolerable".
tveita 4y ago
For one thing a classic way of downplaying metrics, "we're only logging X bits of information", turns into 3000*X. And here X is huge already. If I get access to detailed metrics from go, gcc, make, tar, gzip, bash, python... of course I can tell which programs you have been running (and frankly, I'm disgusted)

arccy 4y ago

maybe the problem is why do you need 3436 binaries there?