Why and how GitHub is adopting OpenTelemetry

The point of OpenTelemitry is to make it so you could write the places you get your traces/metrics in one part of code and configure which backend system it is collected into in another part.

So, for example, you'd add a `trace("my slow thing"){ be slow }` into your code and later add `report to zipkin` or `report to Jaeger` in another part. The place where you trace "my slow thing" doesn't care about how to interact with the backend system or which backend vendor is ultimately used. You can start using prometheus, zipkin, new relic, Jaeger, whatever, just so long as they have an OpenTelemetry adapter you are golden.

The analog is SLF4J in Java.

You'd write your opentelemitry traces throughout your code and at some top level point in your app you configure and say "Hey, OpenTelemetry, report to New Relic".

By itself, OpenTelemetry does nothing.

It's usefulness is that someone writing a lib can add OpenTelemetry calls throughout and anyone using that lib can then collect metrics/traces into whatever metrics solution they are currently usings (be it DynaTrace, DataDog, or New Relic).

I look at myself and I find that many opinions on technology that I hold have clearly been shaped by how much time I've spent on HN. Data-exfiltration telemetry is one example. But I now think about a lot of things I might not have given much thought to before, like how being backed by a VC can shape the direction of a service for the worse. I also find that I'm unnecessarily hardline on topics like paid services versus open source, and shut out anything positive people have to say about advertising as a revenue source.

I sometimes imagine what would happen if I was born inside the borders of a different country. Some countries have very nationalistic citizens. How much of my thought processes are a result of the people and signals I surround myself with? How many of those signals will reach me whether or not I consent to seeing them (advertisements being one example)?

I think I could have been a very different person if I was raised even a hundred miles from where I actually grew up, despite having a similar chemical makeup. That makes me be more conscious about where I'm likely to seek information, and to try not to look for opinions that I already agree with entirely.

It certainly wouldn't be opentelemetry itself as that's just a interface you add adapters to.

Are you thinking a man in the middle would spy? How would that work? This information is pushed over secure connections on the backend likely in a VPN. On the front end, it'd be transmitted over HTTPS. Shouldn't we be more fearful of information collected from DNS than encrypted data sent over HTTPS?

Or are you thinking the metrics aggregators are going to do the spying? How would that impact their business model? Do you think a company would continue to pay the likes of new relic if they were caught giving access to metrics data to outside groups? Do you worry about postgres or prometheus sharing your data with 3rd parties? What about SQL server?

What is the risk model and how would it be different from say the risk model of making an REST call or using a 3rd party library?

Or is it just that "because this is well integrated throughout, it could be used to spy"? Because, generally speaking, these traces don't have enough information to identify what individual users are doing to the system. Even if they did, that wouldn't be a great way to track a user, you'd simply put that tracking information right at the front end of the system. Plumbing it from one end of the system to the other gives little value for a spy. It's adding a bunch of noise to the question you'd want to ask "what are the user's behaviors with our product?"

And even if the demand is there, why would you do this through tracing an not a purpose built spy tool. Wouldn't it be easier for a nefarious lib writer to make a plugin purpose built to collect evil data? If that sells, why wouldn't a tech company buy that instead of buying a solution which combs 3 layers of separation to get worse answer? Why wouldn't google analytics still exist?