This is not Linux philosophy. Freedom means that I'm the only one owner of what I do with my OS. And privacy is privacy, definitely, also about the data that Davesky17 reports in post n.17. That Ubuntu says also theoretically that it wants to collect data by the users is already blaming.
I don't think Linux has any philosophy. If it has that's probably it: Maybe you mistaken with Free Software philosophy.
I am now smiling from ear to ear from the fact I have never used U other than on VM and went with Manjaro instead.
I don't see any coercion here, let alone force. I see an opt out, and Canonical have been pretty open about it. Verb: If you induce someone to do something, you persuade or influence them to do it. (Collins Dictionary) https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/induce There is a difference between inducing and forcing someone to do something.
I'm not sure. There could be a perfectly valid reason for this. It could be worth pursuing on the Ubuntu forums. I would have preferred an opt in.
Agreed, 1 possibility would be support. I said there're plenty of resources about Ubuntu online, but most of them are written in English. From my first use of Ubuntu9.04, I've seen some helpless people who can't read English crying. It will be especially true to some Asian countries where Google translate doesn't work well thanks to fundamental grammatical differences. OS locale info may not be as good as country, until Ubuntu supports all minor locales.
Telemetry is spyware by another name, even if it doesn't do much spying today it's just a matter of time before feature creep has it's usual effect on this type of thing.
This is a real concern. I try not to get too paranoid about these developments, but a little paranoia can often be a good thing. When I eventually upgrade my present Ubuntu set up I'll carefully consider whether to opt out of the telemetry or not. Assuming I still have the choice, that is.
Not worried, most of us here have probably submitted a bug-report before. Which included all our system specs and software versions anyway.
Yes, but some people could have test distros and reproduce bugs in VM or have separate distro and dualboot to collect needed info and maintain privacy.
Well, IMO the deepest problem is nobody is sure about what can be done by those data (especially if combined w/ some other data which can be, accidentaly or sth else, obtained). Apparently MS & Google think just not collecting so called PII is enough which I highly doubt. Ideally, formal and excessive assessment should be done like encryption algorithm. But it also shouldn't be forgotten that sense of privacy differ in everyone. Sometimes it's due to lack of knowledge, but I found even after a lecture course for privacy at univ which ranging from philosophy to some actual matters, students have different idea of privacy. I believe while we personally can choose more privacy-oriented options where applicable, we still have to seek general consensus about regulation, as history proves it works better than just accusing or trying to ban entirely (think about war).
Maybe a good time to switch to Debian base? I've installed MX-17 yesterday, and if the Nvidia drivers get properly installed, I'll switch to it. I've tried installing Nvidia driver in plain Debian and it was a PITA and didn't work at the end...
I think there's too much paranoia and speculation about this. I can understand the tinfoil-fest, but unless you live in a Faraday cage air-gapped from reality, you aren't going to escape all data mining.
Luckily there's an opt-out with Ubuntu. My guess is that Shuttleworth figured that there's so much fear, uncertainty, doubt and paranoia around any kind of data collection, an opt-out had more chance of yielding any useful data than an opt-in option. Just reading some of the replies on this thread tends to support this motion. It reminds me of Private Frazer (John Laurie) in the sitcom 'Dad's Army' (BBC) and his catchphrase "We're doomed, all doomed ... " as he went all swivel eyed in panic and terror. ~ Off Topic Image Removed As Per Policy ~ "Doomed ... we're all doomed!" Shuttleworth has always been open about Ubuntu and anything that has been included with the OS. I remember the furore about the Amazon/Dash search. “We are not telling Amazon what you are searching for. Your anonymity is preserved because we handle the query on your behalf. Don’t trust us? Erm, we have root. You do trust us with your data already.” ~ Mark Shuttleworth Ubuntu is freeware, I don't expect them to provide a usable OS for free, or for Canonical to make a financial loss whilst doing so. I also have a ChromeBook and an Android Asus tablet. I'm pretty sure Google are mining me in some way. Only they don't give me many opt-out options. I accept the notion that we shouldn't get complacent about data collection, but I also don't believe getting all Private Frazer contributes anything either.
I am also not that concerned about aggregating some statistical information about OS installs, but Amazon/Dash is completely different. Amazon/Dash potentially can provide very sensitive information via Internet. You can inspect, analyze packages provided by Canonical. They are not doing them from scratch - they are based on upstream open-source projects. Not everybody need to do it - even if a few people do it, misbehavior will be found. When data comes out from personal computer and lands on server not owned by you, you can not inspect what are they doing with that information. That's the fundamental difference between trusting Canonical about provided packages by them and information they collect. Do you have laptop with Optimus (Intel GPU + Nvidia GPU) or desktop computer with only Nvidia? Installing Nvidia proprietary driver for desktop is easy (just a few commands), but for laptop with Optimus technology is troublesome.
There was always an opt-out. https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy/third-parties This from Canonical is probably nothing compared to just logging into Gmail. I think this has to be seen in perspective.
I'll stick with Ubuntu LTS for a while. We'll see how this goes till 2020. Otherwise, I might switch to Linux Mint.
What kind of persective? Thats like saying put robbery into persective because someone stealing your wallet is nothing compared to someone stealing your car, but that still doesnt make it ok to steal your wallet.
I suppose it depends on what the contents of your wallet are and whether your car is a Reliant Robin or not I suppose lol. The 'robbery' analogy isn't particularly cogent in my opinion as Canonical has an opt-out of the 'stand and deliver' scenario.
