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Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

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Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#21

Post by kodablah »

"[...] we do not have the resources to do detailed user studies of Homebrew users to decide on how best to design future features and prioritise current work. Anonymous aggregate user analytics allow us [...]"

Isn't this a false dichotomy? Why can't other measures be used that don't require "resources" to do "detailed user studies" yet don't require on-by-default information capturing? Surely there are many open source projects that persist to make their users happy without this information, correct?

Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#22

Post by oh_sigh »

fit2rule wrote: post #9
Touche wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Google Analytics is a network of companies that has agreed to privately collection information about users without their permission or even knowledge. It is malware that should not be included in Homebrew. The only ethical decision we can make as developers is not to use it.

Yeah, I'll confess that this is a real deal breaker for me personally .. I'll be having a closer look at ports and maybe fink soon. Maybe after all its time to get off OSX and back to Linux, where these sorts of things happen less frequently ..

Or you could just say HOMEBREW_NO_ANALYTICS=1 and be done with it.

Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#23

Post by Confiks »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #3

Set HOMEBREW_NO_ANALYTICS=1 to opt out. The right thing to do would be to make it opt in, not opt out. (Which would not be without precedent. Debian's popcon is opt-in.)

What is the mechanism in which Homebrew inserts itself into every shell session anyway? I had expected it to be loaded somewhere in some shell initialization script, such as .bashrc or .bash_profile, but I couldn't find anything.

Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#24

Post by ARussell »

fit2rule wrote: post #9
Touche wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Google Analytics is a network of companies that has agreed to privately collection information about users without their permission or even knowledge. It is malware that should not be included in Homebrew. The only ethical decision we can make as developers is not to use it.

Yeah, I'll confess that this is a real deal breaker for me personally .. I'll be having a closer look at ports and maybe fink soon. Maybe after all its time to get off OSX and back to Linux, where these sorts of things happen less frequently ..

Maybe try out Nix while you're at it, too! I'm using NixOS, and I'm pretty happy with it so far. The standalone package manager fills the same niche as Homebrew, I think.

Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#27

Post by Sidnicious »

Confiks wrote: post #23
LeoPanthera wrote: post #3

Set HOMEBREW_NO_ANALYTICS=1 to opt out. The right thing to do would be to make it opt in, not opt out. (Which would not be without precedent. Debian's popcon is opt-in.)

What is the mechanism in which Homebrew inserts itself into every shell session anyway? I had expected it to be loaded somewhere in some shell initialization script, such as .bashrc or .bash_profile, but I couldn't find anything.

It doesn't — by default, Homebrew lives in /usr/local/bin/, which is already in the default $PATH on OS X.

Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#28

Post by vemv »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #3

Set HOMEBREW_NO_ANALYTICS=1 to opt out. The right thing to do would be to make it opt in, not opt out. (Which would not be without precedent. Debian's popcon is opt-in.)

Where's your reasoning? Homebrew gave theirs.

Keep in mind that no personal info is ever sent. Just a random UUID.

Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#29

Post by 0x0 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #22
fit2rule wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'll confess that this is a real deal breaker for me personally .. I'll be having a closer look at ports and maybe fink soon. Maybe after all its time to get off OSX and back to Linux, where these sorts of things happen less frequently ..

Or you could just say HOMEBREW_NO_ANALYTICS=1 and be done with it.

Until next month when we might need to set HOMEBREW_NO_PIWIK=1337...

Re: Homebrew now sends usage information to Google Analytics

#30

Post by quotha »

SuperKlaus wrote: post #17
fit2rule wrote: post #8

Wish there was a way of opt'ing-out without having to set an env var for every session .. is there some brew place to put ENV vars?

Put it in ~/.profile ?

add this to shell profile file: export HOMEBREW_NO_ANALYTICS=1
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