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Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

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Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#331

Post by mikemcquaid »

hueving wrote: post #330
justinclift wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Email sent. :)

Well now we'll see if the cost excuse was just a smokescreen I suppose.

It's the cost of running the servers, the experience and time to run the servers and the time to adjust our analytics code to use the new system (which I'm willing to do).

Additionally, this (kind) offer is pointing to other organisations that may be able to host the servers and discussing potential solutions to the other options. It's not a slam-dunk by any means.

This is all done in my free time so I don't need an excuse to do or not do any of this.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#332

Post by justinclift »

hueving wrote: post #330
justinclift wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Email sent. :)

Well now we'll see if the cost excuse was just a smokescreen I suppose.

Hmmm.... probably better to see how it turns out before jumping to conclusions. :)

From initial discussion with Mike, there are two parts that would be needed for a (self hosted) setup:

a) The hosting itself (this is something I can likely help with)

b) Setup and ongoing management of Piwik. This isn't a skill set I have (nor am interested in). However I'm generally thinking the Homebrew Community is big enough to rustle up at least a few people with the right skill set for getting this done (and keeping it done :>).

Trying to get both hosting + Piwik setup/mgmt from the same set of people may be a tall order, so doing them separately is probably more achievable.

As a data point, this kind of approach - sponsored hosting/hw/similar + volunteers to look after Community infra - is used successfully in other projects. PostgreSQL is a good example.

Can't really think of any obvious reasons it wouldn't work for Homebrew too. ;)

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#333

Post by blub »

justinclift wrote: post #318
blub wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's surprising to hear that a package manager needs local analytics to figure out which packages are used. On the other hand it was likewise surprising to hear that homebrew was using github as its CDN. I don't rely on homebrew to do anything, but I am concerned about the normalisation of surveilance and will point that out in a reasonably polite manner.

> On the other hand it was likewise surprising to hear that homebrew was using github as its CDN. That sounds a bit weird to me. Homebrew gets developed on GitHub... so using GitHub as a CDN doesn't seem wrong (to me).

Github offers source control services, it's not a package server. The CDN stunt was impacting other customers and they had to restrict brew's access.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#334

Post by asymmetric »

akerro wrote: post #255
asymmetric wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a point in running both ublock and umatrix? Also, what do you mean by "clean links"? Striped of "utm..." parts?

µblock blocks and removes ads and trackers, µmatrix does the same for cookies and JS. Clean links improve page loading times when you click on a link on reddit or Google, it extracts destination link and gets you directly to the destination without redirect, also google, facebook don't know that you clicked the link.

> µblock blocks and removes ads and trackers, µmatrix does the same for cookies and JS.

Not according to its creator https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#335

Post by Chris2048 »

andrewguenther wrote: post #289
Chris2048 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the status of the project, or your personal affairs, affect design decisions?

A well funded, well staffed project looks very different than an under staffed, under funded one. They have to make harder decisions about what work to prioritize. I think what Mike is saying just emphasizes why they made this choice. What little work is able to be put into homebrew needs to be as targeted and helpful as possible. Analytics help then do that. So to answer your question, the status of the project and…

> They have to make harder decisions about what work to prioritize

Priority isn't a design decision.

Analytics help, but the choice to not opt-in is not excused by "but we need them"

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#336

Post by justinclift »

blub wrote: post #333
justinclift wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand it was likewise surprising to hear that homebrew was using github as its CDN. That sounds a bit weird to me. Homebrew gets developed on GitHub... so using GitHub as a CDN doesn't seem wrong (to me).

Github offers source control services, it's not a package server. The CDN stunt was impacting other customers and they had to restrict brew's access.

Interesting, hadn't heard about it. :)

Sounds like they weren't using GitHub's Releases approach for binaries, instead doing something else. :/

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#337

Post by mikemcquaid »

blub wrote: post #333
justinclift wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand it was likewise surprising to hear that homebrew was using github as its CDN. That sounds a bit weird to me. Homebrew gets developed on GitHub... so using GitHub as a CDN doesn't seem wrong (to me).

Github offers source control services, it's not a package server. The CDN stunt was impacting other customers and they had to restrict brew's access.

As both a GitHub engineer and Homebrew lead maintainer: that's not true. You're perhaps thinking of CocoaPods where there was some problems which have been addressed through repository reorganisation work on CocoaPods side and a new API that I added to GitHub for Homebrew that makes it easier to avoid no-op `git fetch` runs now.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#338

Post by mikemcquaid »

codedokode wrote: post #225
mikemcquaid wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Looking at the website one of homebrew's developers (or at least the website developers) is based over here in Europe. He might be a nice target if you want to raise a stink and litigate. Homebrew lead maintainer here. We're chronically understaffed and underfunded. We have analytics so we can make Homebrew better by figuring out how to prioritise security, maintenance and bug fixes on packages based on how much th…

There is some kind of dispute about privacy, with commercial companies wanting to collect as much data as possible and some people opposing to it. Is not your project picking the wrong side here? This can be used as an argument later: "see, even popular open source projects do this". I think that giving up on user's privacy is not an acceptable solution. If you don't have enough time to fix all the bugs and nobody is…

> There is some kind of dispute about privacy, with commercial companies wanting to collect as much data as possible and some people opposing to it. Is not your project picking the wrong side here?

As we're not providing information to any commercial company or selling it I don't think this is a reasonable comparison. If we were collecting information to sell and raise funds for the project I'd object to that, too.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#339

Post by ryukafalz »

mikemcquaid wrote: post #338
codedokode wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is some kind of dispute about privacy, with commercial companies wanting to collect as much data as possible and some people opposing to it. Is not your project picking the wrong side here? This can be used as an argument later: "see, even popular open source projects do this". I think that giving up on user's privacy is not an acceptable solution. If you don't have enough time to fix all the bugs and nobody is…

> There is some kind of dispute about privacy, with commercial companies wanting to collect as much data as possible and some people opposing to it. Is not your project picking the wrong side here? As we're not providing information to any commercial company or selling it I don't think this is a reasonable comparison. If we were collecting information to sell and raise funds for the project I'd object to that, too.

I'm not sure it would be as contentious if you were running your own analytics software. But some more privacy-aware users (myself included) have serious reservations about Google's increasingly pervasive data collection.

The fact that Homebrew uses Google Analytics means that it provides Google with more data, even if you don't hand that data over to other companies after the fact.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#340

Post by mikemcquaid »

ryukafalz wrote: post #339
mikemcquaid wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is some kind of dispute about privacy, with commercial companies wanting to collect as much data as possible and some people opposing to it. Is not your project picking the wrong side here? As we're not providing information to any commercial company or selling it I don't think this is a reasonable comparison. If we were collecting information to sell and raise funds for the project I'd object to that, too.

I'm not sure it would be as contentious if you were running your own analytics software. But some more privacy-aware users (myself included) have serious reservations about Google's increasingly pervasive data collection. The fact that Homebrew uses Google Analytics means that it provides Google with more data, even if you don't hand that data over to other companies after the fact.

We've tried extremely hard to ensure that Google cannot tie this information to other information. It uses a randomly generated UUID that you can change at any time and we request IPs be anonymised using the documented method (and I see no evidence that Google lies about this). When there's an alternative that is provided to us for free, can handle our load and stores similar or less personal information to Google Analytics we'll consider it. So far there's been a few offers of help but none of them have met those requirements.
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