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I don't think you honestly want to know "what scenarios people actually think will play out" and that you question this way solely for the sake of argument. I t

I don't think you honestly want to know "what scenarios people actually think will play out" and that you question this way solely for the sake of argument. I think you have your mind made up and would rather snark at people that have an opposing opinion. That being said, it's no stretch to understand that some people just don't want to volunteer personal information especially originating from software. There are enormous trust implications with any sort of software that phones home for any reason. And if the software source code isn't publicly auditable it can be impossible to actually verify what information is being sent from your machine. I personally don't think it's possible to actually trust closed source software. I don't care that it's socially normal to ignore your personal computing privacy. I care about mine.

victorhooi 13y ago
Well, no - you assuming it's rhetorical when I clearly stated it's not is snarky.... As I said, there were two scenarios that I outlined which were unlikely - Google/Github posting my text editor usage publicly on their website, linked to my name, and employees of those companies individually trawling through. The scenario of them mining for trends in the data, in order to improve the software, I'm perfectly fine with. The scenario of the government being involved - I agree that's bad - however, we haven't seen any indications that is true for the wide public. Can you actually come up with any other scenarios that are both 1. probably and 2. worrying?
- shittyanalogy 13y ago
  You don't understand, it's not about "probably" it's about absolute. Just because a 3rd party probably won't do anything that could harm me doesn't mean that I should trust them for any reason. This is one of the main points of the free in free software. It's not about tin-foil hats or being uptight, it's about my-personal-data-privacy and network-user-best-privacy-practices. At this point, you either don't get it, or you don't think I should have the right to absolute data privacy if and purely because I want it.

victorhooi 13y ago

Well, no - you assuming it's rhetorical when I clearly stated it's not is snarky.... As I said, there were two scenarios that I outlined which were unlikely - Google/Github posting my text editor usage publicly on their website, linked to my name, and employees of those companies individually trawling through. The scenario of them mining for trends in the data, in order to improve the software, I'm perfectly fine with. The scenario of the government being involved - I agree that's bad - however, we haven't seen any indications that is true for the wide public. Can you actually come up with any other scenarios that are both 1. probably and 2. worrying?

shittyanalogy 13y ago
You don't understand, it's not about "probably" it's about absolute. Just because a 3rd party probably won't do anything that could harm me doesn't mean that I should trust them for any reason. This is one of the main points of the free in free software. It's not about tin-foil hats or being uptight, it's about my-personal-data-privacy and network-user-best-privacy-practices. At this point, you either don't get it, or you don't think I should have the right to absolute data privacy if and purely because I want it.