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The Go Team's vehemence to not just have this telemetry as off by default rubs me the wrong way. Sure, that means less people will turn it on... but that's the

The Go Team's vehemence to not just have this telemetry as off by default rubs me the wrong way. Sure, that means less people will turn it on... but that's the point. Running telemetry on your machine should not be a requirement for A COMPILER.

thiht 4y ago
It could even just be a prompt at first use, if an environment variable (eg. GO_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1) is not detected. Example: Do you want to enable anonymous telemetry? yes [no] Your choice will be remembered and we won't ask you again. See our engagements and details on what we collect here: https://go.dev/telemetry
- lawtalkinghuman 4y ago
  That'd likely break a lot of CI workloads.
  - webstrand 4y ago
    Easy enough to check for the presence of a TTY and only prompt then. CI wouldn't have a TTY and thus wouldn't prompt.
    - danpalmer 4y ago
      "Falsehoods programmers believe about CI" I mean, I completely agree with you in principle, but also there are a lot of terrible CI systems out there.
      - thiht 4y ago
        Ok, then let’s admit it breaks your CI. So what? You fix it by setting an environment variable and you’re good to go after 2 minutes.
        danpalmer 4y ago
        In any good development org, yes. But I'm sure there are orgs out there where the team that manages the environment and the team that does Go builds are two separate teams. Now the team managing CI (or QA which could actually be in a TTY) needs to notice these failures and communicate them (via a JIRA ticket of course) back to the development team. That team doesn't know what it's about and sticks it on the backlog. Eventually they give the right environment variable, but environment variables are a security risk so it needs to go through security review, and because this mentions telemetry data the privacy and legal teams want sign-off... This might be an exaggeration, but I think it's worth thinking about the worst case scenario when building things like this into development tools that are used so widely.
        thiht 4y ago
        Hey, if it can help highlight dysfunctional Kafkaesque processes in companies, that's a bonus. If you can't update an environment variable yourself, or ask directly someone who can, all that on a CI system that's somehow bound to TTY, get out of here.
        indrora 4y ago
        Said like someone who has never had to fix a broad corporate CI system. Fixing this in several CI systems I've encountered would take well into months, plausibly with many unknown failures because of cached builds.
        thiht 4y ago
        Yeah, don’t hide behind « but in real world… », what you describe is utterly dysfunctional and completely insane.
  - thiht 4y ago
    As I said: > if an environment variable (eg. GO_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1) is not detected It could also easily rely on whether the shell is attached to a tty to detect a CI environment, and disable telemetry by default in this case.
  - John23832 4y ago
    It wouldn't. Most (read: all) CI tools would allow you to set an Env variable. So you could just set the Env to bypass the input.
  - xenophonf 4y ago
    That's better than violating people's right to privacy without their consent.
- MarkSweep 4y ago
  For what it’s worth, the .NET command line tool does something similar. It prints a message on first run saying how to opt-out if telemetry.
dx034 4y ago
Realistically, pretty much no one would turn it on. So if it's off by default you can as well not implement it at all.
- thiht 4y ago
  > Realistically, pretty much no one would turn it on Got stats on that? I guess you don't as long as you don't have some kind of telemetry :)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- maleldil 4y ago
  Isn't that a very strong argument against telemetry? If it's generally understood that users don't want opt-out telemetry, why are people insisting on it?
  - geodel 4y ago
    Huh, don't create a new programming language, no one will use it if it doesn't exist. Isn't it strong argument against new programing languages?
  - therealdrag0 4y ago
    If you default it to on and most people don’t turn it off is that a strong argument in favor of telemetry?
  - arp242 4y ago
    Not necessarily; many people just don't know they can enable it, or can't be bothered, or don't really know the details and have better things to do than investigate so opt-out "just in case" but wouldn't mind opting-in if they were familiar with the details. At this point I think it's very hard to say what "most users" do or don't want exactly.
alkonaut 4y ago
It's not a requirement. Something being "a requirement" would mean that it didn't actually work (compile) without it switched on. That's not the case. It's not required for the program to function and it's not required by the license. So it's not required in any way at all.
Xeoncross 4y ago
I think a compiler that phones home is a great addition to my AI-powered terminal (https://www.warp.dev https://www.warp.dev) and toaster with a camera that I never changed the default password on. /s
potamic 4y ago
Even more so when they claim they don't need to sample more than 16000 reports! Like dude, you can easily find 16000 opting in across millions of users . Hell, if everyone in Google opts in, that is more than a sufficient sample. It's really a non-issue if you consider their problem statement. The fact that they are so adamant in the face of substantial feedback makes me think if there is some other ulterior motive at play.
- joshuamorton 4y ago
  The point is to get representative users. So you really want go's development telemetry informed only by the uses of Google employees?
  - potamic 4y ago
    That was a bit hyperbolic tbh, but it's not far fetched to expect about 1% opt-ins from your user base (also considering beta channels are generally opt-out). A more reasonable way to go about this would be to launch this as opt-in first, and only bring forward the opt-out proposal if enough people don't opt-in. It doesn't have to go with opt-out on day one. This kind of requirement validation in not uncommon and I would be very surprised if the idea didn't cross them already. It would have been the far easier choice to make especially in the face of strong feedback, but the fact that they just chose to close the discussion instead of trying to move forward on the proposal doesn't bode well.
    - arp242 4y ago
      > the fact that they just chose to close the discussion instead of trying to move forward on the proposal doesn't bode well The way I read that wasn't as a "buzz off, we don't want to discuss this", but rather as a "okay, we've heard all that was said, we will think about it". At some point everything that can be said has been said. Did they need to close the discussion? Probably not, but it avoids the work and overhead of having to moderate things because it attracted quite a few comments that did need moderation (and will likely continue to attract them).

thiht 4y ago

It could even just be a prompt at first use, if an environment variable (eg. GO_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1) is not detected. Example: Do you want to enable anonymous telemetry? yes [no] Your choice will be remembered and we won't ask you again. See our engagements and details on what we collect here: https://go.dev/telemetry

lawtalkinghuman 4y ago
That'd likely break a lot of CI workloads.
- webstrand 4y ago
  Easy enough to check for the presence of a TTY and only prompt then. CI wouldn't have a TTY and thus wouldn't prompt.
  - danpalmer 4y ago
    "Falsehoods programmers believe about CI" I mean, I completely agree with you in principle, but also there are a lot of terrible CI systems out there.
    - thiht 4y ago
      Ok, then let’s admit it breaks your CI. So what? You fix it by setting an environment variable and you’re good to go after 2 minutes.
      - danpalmer 4y ago
        In any good development org, yes. But I'm sure there are orgs out there where the team that manages the environment and the team that does Go builds are two separate teams. Now the team managing CI (or QA which could actually be in a TTY) needs to notice these failures and communicate them (via a JIRA ticket of course) back to the development team. That team doesn't know what it's about and sticks it on the backlog. Eventually they give the right environment variable, but environment variables are a security risk so it needs to go through security review, and because this mentions telemetry data the privacy and legal teams want sign-off... This might be an exaggeration, but I think it's worth thinking about the worst case scenario when building things like this into development tools that are used so widely.
        thiht 4y ago
        Hey, if it can help highlight dysfunctional Kafkaesque processes in companies, that's a bonus. If you can't update an environment variable yourself, or ask directly someone who can, all that on a CI system that's somehow bound to TTY, get out of here.
      - indrora 4y ago
        Said like someone who has never had to fix a broad corporate CI system. Fixing this in several CI systems I've encountered would take well into months, plausibly with many unknown failures because of cached builds.
        thiht 4y ago
        Yeah, don’t hide behind « but in real world… », what you describe is utterly dysfunctional and completely insane.
- thiht 4y ago
  As I said: > if an environment variable (eg. GO_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1) is not detected It could also easily rely on whether the shell is attached to a tty to detect a CI environment, and disable telemetry by default in this case.
- John23832 4y ago
  It wouldn't. Most (read: all) CI tools would allow you to set an Env variable. So you could just set the Env to bypass the input.
- xenophonf 4y ago
  That's better than violating people's right to privacy without their consent.
MarkSweep 4y ago
For what it’s worth, the .NET command line tool does something similar. It prints a message on first run saying how to opt-out if telemetry.

dx034 4y ago

Realistically, pretty much no one would turn it on. So if it's off by default you can as well not implement it at all.

thiht 4y ago
> Realistically, pretty much no one would turn it on Got stats on that? I guess you don't as long as you don't have some kind of telemetry :)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
maleldil 4y ago
Isn't that a very strong argument against telemetry? If it's generally understood that users don't want opt-out telemetry, why are people insisting on it?
- geodel 4y ago
  Huh, don't create a new programming language, no one will use it if it doesn't exist. Isn't it strong argument against new programing languages?
- therealdrag0 4y ago
  If you default it to on and most people don’t turn it off is that a strong argument in favor of telemetry?
- arp242 4y ago
  Not necessarily; many people just don't know they can enable it, or can't be bothered, or don't really know the details and have better things to do than investigate so opt-out "just in case" but wouldn't mind opting-in if they were familiar with the details. At this point I think it's very hard to say what "most users" do or don't want exactly.

alkonaut 4y ago

It's not a requirement. Something being "a requirement" would mean that it didn't actually work (compile) without it switched on. That's not the case. It's not required for the program to function and it's not required by the license. So it's not required in any way at all.

Xeoncross 4y ago

I think a compiler that phones home is a great addition to my AI-powered terminal (https://www.warp.dev https://www.warp.dev) and toaster with a camera that I never changed the default password on. /s

potamic 4y ago

Even more so when they claim they don't need to sample more than 16000 reports! Like dude, you can easily find 16000 opting in across millions of users . Hell, if everyone in Google opts in, that is more than a sufficient sample. It's really a non-issue if you consider their problem statement. The fact that they are so adamant in the face of substantial feedback makes me think if there is some other ulterior motive at play.

joshuamorton 4y ago
The point is to get representative users. So you really want go's development telemetry informed only by the uses of Google employees?
- potamic 4y ago
  That was a bit hyperbolic tbh, but it's not far fetched to expect about 1% opt-ins from your user base (also considering beta channels are generally opt-out). A more reasonable way to go about this would be to launch this as opt-in first, and only bring forward the opt-out proposal if enough people don't opt-in. It doesn't have to go with opt-out on day one. This kind of requirement validation in not uncommon and I would be very surprised if the idea didn't cross them already. It would have been the far easier choice to make especially in the face of strong feedback, but the fact that they just chose to close the discussion instead of trying to move forward on the proposal doesn't bode well.
  - arp242 4y ago
    > the fact that they just chose to close the discussion instead of trying to move forward on the proposal doesn't bode well The way I read that wasn't as a "buzz off, we don't want to discuss this", but rather as a "okay, we've heard all that was said, we will think about it". At some point everything that can be said has been said. Did they need to close the discussion? Probably not, but it avoids the work and overhead of having to moderate things because it attracted quite a few comments that did need moderation (and will likely continue to attract them).