Bash would like to record analyitics. y/n/more information
> y
> ls *.c
ls would like to record information about how you use it.
y/n/more information.
> y
file1.c file2.c file3.c
> grep 'string' *.c
grep would like to record some information about your
usage. y/n/more information.
> y
file1.c:8: string
> vim file1.c
vim would like to record information usage, to help
improve vim in future. y/n/more information.
> y
The 'C' package in vim would like to ...I'm amazed we're even having this discussion
The very idea of your shell or file listing program sending analytics to the mothership is ridiculous. They shouldn't be even talking to a network directly. They have a set of well-defined tasks, and spying on you is not one of them.
Simple answer, Yes.
It would lead to conversations about the elephant in the room. It also alleviates the assumption I trust all providers(comprehend the EULA/ToS) and puts their actions under scrutiny. If more people realized what data is collected and by whom for whom they could make an informed, cost/benefit choice. Other useful results are, what is the applicability of that data to the project, what characteristics define the 'Trusted Partners' that data is shared with and, possibly, inject some restraint into the collectors' decisions of what to collect.
edit: removed unintended paste fragment
$ git pull
(long wait)
^c
$ git pull
(got distracted and had to leave keyboard for a bit)
Can't execute program until you accept xcode license
1. paraphrasing the words
Worse, that fraction will be the statistically unusual people who bother reading and finding such options, meaning we can't derive any statistically useful results about the user base from them!
By the way I think that browser history should be disabled by default too.
I remember some IM app for linux had history turned off by default. I was really surprised then.
I get that there may be money involved, but presumably self-hosting also gives them more of the information to build out what they need.
> (...)and have been trying to find people who will provide us with non-Google hosting but: we're chronically understaffed and underfunded[1]
For me, my answers are yes no yes. A while ago, you did that, and you get an old version of the thing you just installed. With analytics, they saw that many people forget to update before installing after a while, so they added an update step in that case.
I call that progress, no matter how small. I didn't change that and to you didn't change that. The brew devs changed that. Maybe they would have changed it anyway later.. Who knows. But the fact that brew because a tiny tiny bit better because of analytics, in part from me, makes me a happier user. Now I don't need to remember to update before installing.
Of course it's not the best way to "contribute", but it's something. Definitely better than "contributing" your data to companies, like you said.