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Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

forum.manjaro.org

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Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#91

Post by sealeck »

bombela wrote: post #61
sealeck wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding (and I am not a lawyer) is that under European data protection law the important thing is to obtain user consent for this; I think there's a very reasonable argument that informing the user that you collect telemetry and that if they wish to avoid this they should just build their own copy of the software (which provides a very easy to access opt out which should satisfy everyone). Although EU privac…

Why did MS comply to the EU request on installations outside of the EU? MS Windows with crowdstrike BSOD'd for American airlines on the American soil afterall.

> Why did MS comply to the EU request on installations outside of the EU?

Because it's really expensive to maintain two versions of the same kernel?

Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#92

Post by sealeck »

Nullabillity wrote: post #59
sealeck wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding (and I am not a lawyer) is that under European data protection law the important thing is to obtain user consent for this; I think there's a very reasonable argument that informing the user that you collect telemetry and that if they wish to avoid this they should just build their own copy of the software (which provides a very easy to access opt out which should satisfy everyone). Although EU privac…

Consent needs to be freely given; you can't nudge users into it and you can't hold access ransom over it. There's no way what you're suggesting would fly.

I've been told that if you have mandatory telemetry in your application that's fine because the user has a way to opt out (it's a free market and they don't have to use your software). I believe the territory where you add an opt-out is a bit murkier.

Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#93

Post by nixosbestos »

jeroenhd wrote: post #64
nixosbestos wrote: post #27

I will never, ever understand how Manjaro has the audience it has, including SBC manufacturers, etc. They don't work with the community particularly well, have a horrible, awful track record of distro stewardship. And now this.

Installing Arch is unnecessarily difficult for most people. Manjaro is Arch without all the hassle. All the "cool" people seem to have switched to Manjaro's successor, EndeavourOS, though, which does the same thing but with a rebrand. I've never had trouble with Manjaro because of anything Manjaro caused. The occasional error when updating because the AUR is ahead of the distro repo is never a problem. The worst prob…

It wasn't once, it was multiple times, and at least once, they recommended clock-rollback as a workaround.

Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#94

Post by ranger_danger »

sealeck wrote: post #90
ranger_danger wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think a "reasonable person" from the perspective of a court (non-developer, non-technical, end-user) can be expected to know (or even learn) how to compile software in this way, not to mention other downsides it has (like lack of updates and possibility to create new bugs) so I don't think this would be allowed, but it's up to a judge to decide on a case by case basis, not us armchair experts.

> I don't think a "reasonable person" from the perspective of a court (non-developer, non-technical, end-user) can be expected to know (or even learn) how to compile software in this way I mean I don't think the EU can oblige you to make your software available to people who don't know how to use a computer.

Well that's a hot take if I ever heard one.

Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#95

Post by sealeck »

ranger_danger wrote: post #94
sealeck wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think a "reasonable person" from the perspective of a court (non-developer, non-technical, end-user) can be expected to know (or even learn) how to compile software in this way I mean I don't think the EU can oblige you to make your software available to people who don't know how to use a computer.

Well that's a hot take if I ever heard one.

It's good that we have operating systems that are easy to use (e.g. Mac OS, Windows), but this is not a priority for Linux desktop distributions (which is fine); what counts as easy to opt in/out of is very contextual.

Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#96

Post by hx8 »

dmitrygr wrote: post #47
protonbob wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the morally correct thing to do but it does result in selection bias for any statistics gathered. It's hard to figure out a way to get good data but users rights must be respected.

Somehow, before the wide availability of constantly connected Internet, software got made. Perhaps constantly collecting data on your users is not required after all.

If your competition is collecting user data and you aren't then they have a competitive advantage in understanding where to make investments for future development investments.

It's really best to just kill the arms race and restrict data collection.

Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#97

Post by devit »

jeroenhd wrote: post #72
devit wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can host all the default mirrors themselves, either by serving the actual data (with a CDN) or by redirecting requests to a 3rd party mirror by GeoIP.

Which would be an insanely expensive way to collect very little usable information. Mirrors are run for free by volunteers, a worldwide CDN to replace free mirrors would be prohibitively costly for a relatively small distro like Manjaro.

Presumably they can use Cloudflare or similar for free or relatively cheap, or perhaps find someone willing to gift CDN service to a Linux distribution.

Redirecting the requests to the closest existing mirror also obviously drastically reduces bandwidth requirements and should presumably be doable with a few (for redundancy) colocated dedicated servers running efficient server software.

Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#98

Post by anonym29 »

righthand wrote: post #19
anonym29 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How confident are you that systemd isn't sending telemtery from your machine?

Fairly as I don’t use systemd.

If you don't mind me asking, what init manager are you using instead?

Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#99

Post by INGSOCIALITE »

jeroenhd wrote: post #64
nixosbestos wrote: post #27

I will never, ever understand how Manjaro has the audience it has, including SBC manufacturers, etc. They don't work with the community particularly well, have a horrible, awful track record of distro stewardship. And now this.

Installing Arch is unnecessarily difficult for most people. Manjaro is Arch without all the hassle. All the "cool" people seem to have switched to Manjaro's successor, EndeavourOS, though, which does the same thing but with a rebrand. I've never had trouble with Manjaro because of anything Manjaro caused. The occasional error when updating because the AUR is ahead of the distro repo is never a problem. The worst prob…

installing arch is just partitioning a drive and pacstrapping

it is in NO way unnecessarily difficult

there's even an archinstall script for the lazy

just because there is no gui installer != unnecessarily difficult

Re: Manjaro Linux prepares to enable telemetry by default

#100

Post by dmitrygr »

hx8 wrote: post #96
dmitrygr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow, before the wide availability of constantly connected Internet, software got made. Perhaps constantly collecting data on your users is not required after all.

If your competition is collecting user data and you aren't then they have a competitive advantage in understanding where to make investments for future development investments. It's really best to just kill the arms race and restrict data collection.

You can fight back by exposing how much data the competition collects. I buy devices that collect less data as a choice. Many others do too.
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