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Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

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Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#101

Post by cwkoss »

cube2222 wrote: post #69

Probably related to[0]. To anybody complaining that this should be opt-in: opt-in telemetry doesn't work. The reason for this is that most people don't care, but they don't care either way. They don't disable it when prompted, nor would they enable it manually. The idea of telemetry is being able to prioritize the work that will be most widely useful. For this you need a good and balanced sample of your users. You do…

> opt-in telemetry doesn't work

That's too bad. Guess you don't get any telemetry data if you want to develop ethical open software.

The answer isn't to bend your ethics.

If a take a dollar from everyone but it's opt out, that's just theft with extra steps.

If I make it opt in, nobody is going to give me the dollar, but that doesn't make opt out morally justifiable.

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#102

Post by _ph_ »

Thaxll wrote: post #87
_ph_ wrote: post #62

If there is any virtue to collecting telemetry, make it opt-in. Any developer convinced of this being useful will gladly enable it. But making it opt-out is just nefarious, because most users will not be aware of it.

This is naive, no one ever turn telemetry on if it's turned off by default, that's the reason why it's on by default.

Still, opt-out is just inacceptable. At least with a mechanism which can easily fail, like setting an environment variable. This basically forces you to wrap the go tool in a script which ensures the environment variable to be set.

As this seem to cache the results, another option is to fiddle with the cache to report bogus information.

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#103

Post by atahanacar »

cube2222 wrote: post #82
saurik wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument for this being opt-in isn't about "it works better", it is about it being ethically correct. There are a ton of things that "don't work" unless you do something unethical: that doesn't mean they are OK, it doesn't mean they should be tolerated, and it doesn't mean the people who do them--and, at the end of the day, it is people who make these decisions: there is a human being who refused to say "no" and…

You're framing this as though the "ethical" choice were obvious, or that there was a person who "knew this was the ethical thing to do, but turned a blind eye". I disagree, I think it's a very contested topic, with lots of discussion whenever it's raised here, with either side possibly being a vocal minority.

[flagged]

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#104

Post by mh7 »

cube2222 wrote: post #69

Probably related to[0]. To anybody complaining that this should be opt-in: opt-in telemetry doesn't work. The reason for this is that most people don't care, but they don't care either way. They don't disable it when prompted, nor would they enable it manually. The idea of telemetry is being able to prioritize the work that will be most widely useful. For this you need a good and balanced sample of your users. You do…

Any evidence that telemetry actually works? (i.e makes the program better)

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#105

Post by stefanos82 »

From a legal point of view, how companies will react to this, be it default-on or default-off?

Some companies are using it for internal use which I'm sure all of us know cases with a number NDA-ed projects from third-parties or outsourced companies that collaborate on the matter.

So, who is going to sue whom here when the one party will disable OR has already disabled the telemetry and the other will have it on by default, for whatever reason?

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#106

Post by cwkoss »

nicce wrote: post #70
ergonaught wrote: post #55

On-by-default makes me question whether rsc's judgement has been compromised, which leads me to question continuing to use the language. A strange miss for him.

Off-by-default in a scale likely means that there is no telemetry at all. I would not cancel a guy or programming language based on just suggesting that. He has given a lot of though for that if you read the blog posts.

If a take a dollar from everyone but it's opt out, that's still theft.

If I make it opt in, nobody is going to give me the dollar, but that doesn't make opt out morally justifiable.

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#107

Post by msla »

hommelix wrote: post #22

Telemetry in open source exists for a long time. Debian has the popcon package that can be installed and reports weekly usage of the software packages. The telemetry data are published in the open. The Debian popcon FAQ could be used as guideline for other telemetry needs. https://popcon.debian.org/

> Debian has the popcon package that can be installed and reports weekly usage of the software packages.

Right. That's fully opt-in, to the point the package isn't even installed by default, which is the only moral way to do this.

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#108

Post by msla »

bioemerl wrote: post #16

Honestly, this may be unpopular with hacker news, but just add your own telemetry. If people don't like it they can turn it off, and telemetry is essential for a good product. Do let people turn it off though please.

> telemetry is essential for a good product

No, it isn't, and the idea that is is toxic.

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#109

Post by philosopher1234 »

atahanacar wrote: post #103
cube2222 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're framing this as though the "ethical" choice were obvious, or that there was a person who "knew this was the ethical thing to do, but turned a blind eye". I disagree, I think it's a very contested topic, with lots of discussion whenever it's raised here, with either side possibly being a vocal minority.

[flagged]

This is a very extreme position. It's hard to take you seriously when your comment doesn't have any nuance.

Re: Transparent telemetry for open-source projects

#110

Post by xh-dude »

Thaxll wrote: post #80
alyandon wrote: post #54

Oh Google - never stop being you. Not only is it going to be opt-out (because of course it would be coming from Google), I really like the whole "wait a week before sending telemetry" part that just coincidentally has the benefit of sneaking right past people that actively look for suspicious network activity when they've freshly installed something. Am I being uncharitable?

Very popular programming language and IDE have telemetry on by default, VSCode, C#, Java etc ... People act like they discover telemetry in 2023. I don't think it's a big deal, ultimately it's to improve Go and the proposal makes it very easy to disable it ( single env variable ).

Totally agree. Telemetry has been around and matured and benefits users. I’m not sure the benefits for Go would be as significant as other software but, really, why not?
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