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A comment on Pkg.jl telemetry should be opt-in. Parent comment

Re:Pkg.jl telemetry should be opt-in by pwdisswordfish2 on Sunday July 05, 2020 @05:51PM (#23742391) 

   Moreover, at present, we have no idea how many people use each solver (and on which platform!). Knowing how many people installed which solver
   would allow us to prioritize support from our finite developer time.
Why not just let users vote on that? The support is for the users, no? Instead the developers want to minimise the amount of time they spend on maintenance based on the number of users who could potentially complain. The reason for this is (as we are about to be told) so they can spend more time working on platforms where they believe commercial solver developers could provide for-profit support services "(or $$)".

   This would also allow us to lobby the commercial solver developers to provide official support (or $$). To quote one company "We'll want to
   provide official support at some point, but it looks like the scales haven't tilted quite yet." It'd be nice to know whether 100, 1000, 10000, or
   100000 people per month use their software; that might change their mind.
The truth comes out. Collecting data via "frictionless" telemetry allows someone else, e.g., commercial solver developers, to make money. Nothing wrong with that if we let users know about these intentions, however when devlopers try to operate under the guise of "free", "non-profit", "open source", etc. while, truthfully, they have commercial motives, then it seems to me they are doing everything they can to avoid tipping users off that this aims to be a commercially-oriented project. Instead of just being transparent about their motives and letting users decide, they want to sneak something by (most) users. The issue raised here is not the collecting statistics (nothing wrong with that), it is the less transparent, opt-out nature of it: telemetry. Deceptiveness, stealth. The message coming from this discussion is "Don't tip (majority of) users off that we are collecting data." And why is that? Because the developers know this is something most users do not want.

   Finally, if it is opt-in, the vast majority of users will not opt-in. This leaves us no better off than we were before. Opt-out is a good
   compromise.
The discussion should have ended right here. If providing usage statistics is something that the Julia developers already know the vast majority of users do not want to do, then sneaking it by them via opt-out telemetry is wrong, and it tells us much about the people behind Julia. If users do not want it, and you know that, then why the heck are you doing it anyway? Anyone reading this will know why, but most users will probably never read what we are reading here.

The rest of this discussion devolves into "Everyone else is doing it". The lone dissenter finally gives in to peer pressure.

I remember when using download statistics was enough. Developers still maintained software. No "trade-offs" were needed.

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Re:Pkg.jl telemetry should be opt-in by 3JPLW on Sunday July 05, 2020 @10:58PM (#23744262)
This is quite the caricature of what's happening in that thread.

> The truth comes out.

The truth was never hidden. It's all laid out quite plainly here: https://julialang.org/legal/data/.

> If providing usage statistics is something that the Julia developers already know the vast majority of users do not want to do

There are three reasons someone might not opt-in: they don't want to, they don't know about it, or they simply don't care. To ignore the latter two is simply disingenuous.

> The rest of this discussion devolves into "Everyone else is doing it". The lone dissenter finally gives in to peer pressure.

That's certainly not my read of the 200+ post thread.

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Re:Pkg.jl telemetry should be opt-in by pwdisswordfish2 on Monday July 06, 2020 @02:54AM (#23745371)
You are certainly entitled to your developer perspective.

What are the reasons users do not read the /legal/data page on the Julia website? What are the reasons users do not read 200+ posts from developers debating the use of opt-out telemetry? To ignore such reasons, assuming they exist, would also be disingenuous.

If you put the choice clearly before users and they knowingly, affirmatively choose to submit usage data, then no 200+ post thread is necessary. Instead, the choice is not left to users. It is made by developers, and the fact of the use of opt-out telemetry is found on a webpage that developers know users do not read.

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Re:Pkg.jl telemetry should be opt-in by spenczar5 on Sunday July 05, 2020 @06:20PM (#23742604)
> I remember when using download statistics was enough. Developers still maintained software. No "trade-offs" were needed.

Do you remember applying for grants to fund software? It's tough out there, right now. Harder than it once was - software is more expensive, and funding agencies are more critical.

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Re:Pkg.jl telemetry should be opt-in by mlubin on Sunday July 05, 2020 @06:43PM (#23742757)
> I remember when using download statistics was enough.

No download statistics are currently available for Julia packages. That's essentially the issue that the Pkg.jl telemetry is trying to address.

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Re:Pkg.jl telemetry should be opt-in by ViralBShah on Sunday July 05, 2020 @06:53PM (#23742828)
Julia packages are github repos, where all we get are the traffic stats for the last 2 weeks for clones. It doesn't even provide the number of downloads of released software (the tarballs), or even basic stats that you could get from webserver access logs.
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Re:Pkg.jl telemetry should be opt-in by jcsuggestions on Tuesday July 07, 2020 @06:54AM (#23757803)
You could instead possibly: - move the project and ecosystem completely off GitHub - sell the project to a FAANG - go with the MathWorks model and just straight up sell closed source proprietary code (they have 5000+ employees and growing, you have ~30, maybe 40 if you count the JuliaLab that essentially work for JC as well)

As much as people in the Julia community have dunked on Matlab in the past, at least MathWorks has their business model worked out, people understand the tradeoffs being made, and the dark pattern being used is just closed source software instead of exploiting PII.

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Re:Pkg.jl telemetry should be opt-in by dklend122 on Tuesday July 07, 2020 @12:56PM (#23761174)
How are anonymous UUIDs PII and how is JC exploiting them?

They have no special access nor do I see a first order effect that benefits them. Just that the open source Julia ecosystem will benefit and that will feed back into JC's market.

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Re:Pkg.jl telemetry should be opt-in by thayne on Sunday July 05, 2020 @08:42PM (#23743590)
> If providing usage statistics is something that the Julia developers already know the vast majority of users do not want to do,

I think it is more likely the majority of users don't care, so do whatever the default is. If the vast majority didn't want telemetry enough to opt out anyway, then there wouldn't be any point in having it at all.

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Re:Pkg.jl telemetry should be opt-in by pwdisswordfish2 on Sunday July 05, 2020 @08:55PM (#23743656)
Edit: The issue of no download statistics is an issue for the developers, not an issue for users. Why is it an "issue" for developers of a "non-commercial" project in the first place? Because the developers actually have commercial ideas for the project. Users did not create this "issue", developers did. Instead of resolving the issue created by using a third party service for downloads by making a compromise, e.g., forgo using a third party to host downloads, or asking users to help them resolve it, e.g., by agreeing to submit usage stats, a new problem is passed on to users instead: opt-out, default telemetry. This is a user perspective. Compare and contrast this with a developer perspective.
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