As with W10 ... And in that OS you can't even completely opt-out, not really. They will always know what you are running, what you have installed or uninstalled. (Oh, sure, there are the 3rd party apps, registry tweaks etc...witch could all be made obsolete with the next force feeded W10 update...) You know, when the W10 first came out and the spying was first mentioned some folks answered to critism that "Google and everybody else does that too". That's weak minded justification that takes road to straight to hell and will at the end make everyone miserable. Heck, there is already a generation (maybe even two!) that think the status quo of giving all your personal information for free to companies to store and sell (and goverment to use) is perfectly normal and acceptable. Old DDR would be dreaming of that kind of control ....
Yes and I think that is the plan, introduce the unacceptable on society by whatever means necessary, be that sneakily or forcefully and ignore the criticisms for long enough and gradually the older generation will die and be replaced by those younger ones who think it is normal. Example, income tax.
At the moment I can only assume that Canonical are doing this for analytical reasons and not monetisation. At least Shuttleworth has been up front about Canonical's intentions and there is an opt-out. Extrapolating this into a doomsday scenario is just too 'Private Fraser' for me. In that case the only alternative is to live in a Faraday cage.
Well... kids also assume that Santa Claus, fairies, etc. really exist.... and when they grow up it comes the reality check... If they were really interested for analytical reasons they would leave it opt-in and not opt-out. Panagiotis
And your evidence for this is? There is no logic to your asseveration. Even if Santa Claus (Father Christmas?) and fairies actually existed it wouldn't change the fact that you can easily opt-out of this data collection. If it's as sinister as you imply why is there any choice at all? Again, the hysteria and paranoia surrounding any data collection creates so much FUD on the internet that any mention of data collection is automatically assumed to be nefarious and a prelude to the end of the universe as we know it. Yet Shuttleworth has been quite open about this. I can see now why the decision to make it opt-out was taken. Anyway, it's elves purportedly that live on the Isle of Man. Although I must admit I have never seen any there. Maybe that's why Canonical is based there. I'm guessing a few trolls exist here on this thread though. Could it possibly be that Canonical need to gather hardware and software information to improve Ubuntu and improve its use and compatibility? Because if it does I'd quite willingly send them that information as it could very possibly improve my experience running Ubuntu, which, like all software can have its bugs. As far as I know both the ontologically presumed Santa Claus and the fairies could choose to opt-out of the data collection if they wished. And any assorted elves or the invisible pink unicorn for that matter. *Private Fraser Voice* 'Well kids ... we're doomed ... we're all doomed ... '
Young generation here. I never say ANY data collection is OK. I rather require transparency, compliance, and regulation (by self & other). My friend who is also 20s will agree. We probably are more realist than dreamer. Born in the world where the collection is done everywhere, we choose how to regulate them than just accuse or try to ban them entirely, like pacifist. As a person, I haven't used Ubuntu after it started to incorporate Amazon affiliate, but I still recommend Ubuntu to others and hope Ubuntu shows good example of how collection should be done. Seriously? It seems to be either you don't know statistics or you can't see big picture as you're too much one-sided. No personal offence intended. As Ubuntu user is not Hardened-Gentoo's, opt-in is not feasible, doesn't make sense at all i.e. they have no choice other than not collecting data or opt-out. Why? Because it's for analytics, very obvious from statistical point of view. For those who still don't get what this mean, statistics heavily depends on assumption of random sampling (there're exception, but I won't start statistics lecture here). If they made it opt-in, only those who look at options carefully (most probably techy) AND don't care privacy AND willing to help Ubuntu will check it, which means the population of analytical data is quite biased. It's not just a matter of the number nor percentage, when the population is biased the statistical analytics can't make meaningful results. Opt-out can also make a little bias, but it can be mitigated by the power of the numbers and even if not, still they can know about majority which is their main purpose.
I see opt-out every time on installation is big trouble. But still it's very welcome feature, especially when opt-in is not a feasible option. Opt-in works in bug report or installation report, but not for analytics.
Is this a rhetorical question? If you provide evidence for your assumption, I'll provide evidence for mine. As for the rest of your post... not even worth replying.... Except from the part about hardware and software information. If you actually read what will be collected it should be a one time collection/transmition... so why the heck there is an option to disable/enable it later? As for the focus/compatibility/bugs BS. The method https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs worked fine for over a decade...
Seriously? And where is the random sampling with opt-out? Collecting data from everyone is meant for analytics? I guess, nobody informed the debian devs that their data sampling is flawed for the last 13 years... https://popcon.debian.org/
No, it isn't rhetorical. I don't see how the information gleaned can be used for anything other than the improvement of Ubuntu. My 'evidence' is that Shuttleworth and Canonical have never deceived me in the past and have always been transparent about any data collection, just as they are with this. All you have is spurious accusations, fear, uncertainty, doubt and paranoia. You have nothing more than that. Which is obvious from your reply. And yet you have and you were the one who introduced Santa Claus and the fairies. As far as I can tell, if you actually read what will be collected, the option is during installation and the opt-out is valid. I should imagine no information is transmitted if you opt-out. Which is why it's called an opt-out. It wouldn't bother me if it was more than a one time transmission anyway, Canonical have needed this for a long time IMO. I think the Ubuntu end user would benefit greatly from Canonical having a lot of raw data like this. There are bugs that need fixing. At the end of the day you can troll me as much as you like, no one's forcing you to use Ubuntu. "Doomed ... we're all doomed"
It's a paradox - when Linux companies try to make it big, they are accused of being sellouts, stealing data, etc. But then people complain about Microsoft monopoly. Want Canonical to succeed? Help them. Mrk
Why do they need to know what country I live in that installation time data gathering? How does that make Ubuntu software less buggy or somehow else better? https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/ubuntu-data-collection/ As that article mentions, most (anyone else than Ubuntu?) Linux distros don't collect information. It's not just expected in a Linux world (and one of the reasons I finally decided to switch to it, being longtime 50-50 Windows-Linux user). That automatic Apport crash reporting tool sounds cool however (then again, if Ubuntu has that, what does it need installation time telemetry for?) Also, as that article mentions: "Ubuntu has been around since 2004. Other Linux distributions have been around for longer. Desktop Linux has come a long way since then. The experience is more polished and stable without having to collect this kind of information about users. So why now?" Yes, why now? What does it need for it if it has automatic crash reporting tool that can send the same information when/if app crash? Why the need to know what country I live? Why? Why? Why? Ok, ranting mode off Back to coding ...
This is so true. I like and use Ubuntu regularly. It's freeware, if I can contribute to its improvement I would.
Stefan, what's so special about your country as information. That's just locale, you can set it any which way you want. Second, your ip address pretty much uniquely identifies you, as blocks and allocations are easily known. Also, collecting crash data is extremely important, if you don't understand that, that does not make it untrue. Lastly, Linux has progressed - 100% due to Ubuntu - all other distros and concepts pretty much are (sadly) unchanged. Mrk
So your evidence is that you trust Canonical and it's CEO. Trust = firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something. Evidence = the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid. Who told you that I use Ubuntu? I only install it to customers, and only if they ask me explicitly to install it for them; the only versions that were somewhat bug free were 12 and 14. In fact on Monday I spend 3-4 hours troubleshooting and finally uninstalling it and replacing it with debian on a customers system, because last week's update screwed his systemd depedencies and made it almost unusable. The funny thing is that he moved away from windows 10 (only for that system) because of a bad forced upgrade, only to be "burnt" by Ubuntu LTS... ps. If you don't value your privacy you are free to do so. Trying to ridicule others that have a different opinion than yours, is the definition of trolling. Anyway idiocy cannot be cured, so feel free to troll as much as you like....
Did I say it should have any different treatment? However, there's one difference - they let you turn this thing off. You cannot toggle off telemetry in these other systems (you can by other means, but that's not the point). Mrk
Yes, Shuttleworth has always been up front about any data collection. There has always been an opt-out. This is why I perceive a difference between Canonical and the others. I think Shuttleworth is an idealist at heart. He's always taken time to explain the rationale behind any changes in Ubuntu (usually before they're implemented). I also believe you're quite correct about Ubuntu spearheading the advancement and use of Linux. I, for one, appreciate having a viable and usable choice that isn't Apple or Microsoft.
For me the question is will canonical allow the removal of the data collection packages or will they be integrated in another critical package. And we shouldn't forget that Microsoft and Apple allowed in the past to disable the telemetry... but once they "gained" users trust they simple changed their policy. Also Canonical should not forget that most users that flee from Windows and end on Ubuntu the last 5-6 years, they "migrated" for that exact reason.
Hey please, regardless of opinion or validity or whatsoever, refrain personal offence or looking down. I'm serious, but admittedly I didn't explain statistics well, tho I declared I won't and keep to say I won't much. Random sampling is the second best when whole data of the population is not available (which is most often the case), but in analytics they can acquire nearly whole data. Yes, it's not the whole since those who opted out were removed, but thanks to the nature of the stats, as long as they're minority it won't affect the results much, although that all depends on the purpose (and for their purpose, it obviously won't affect even if the bias can't be mitigated). In stats, you firstly set purpose/agenda and everything have to be designed & interpreted accordingly. For your example of popcorn, it can both be said it's flawed and not flawed. I'm not trying to fool you by rhethoric really, I just trying to explain basics of stats here. If your purpose is just to know how many ppl're using a product, bias in a sample won't affect at all. If your purpose is to know which package is most often used in entire user base, some biases will affect. But such property will be relatively robust (as long as sample set is big enough) against whether one care to opt-in to data submission or not, as there will be no clear direct relation btwn them. While there're too many stats out there and some of them are obviously flawed, many others can't easily be divided into flawed and not-flawed w/out considering its purpose, usage, and method. OPSWAT publishes some stats which are from biased samples, but they still serve its purpose as they explain it well and are not trying to represent whole user base of said products nor use them for anything which shouldn't. One can interpret and use the results accordingly. And I don't think Debian devs use popcorn stats as only source of which package should be included. While they use a bit ambiguous word of 'with information from enough people', considering the estimated number of Debian users, 200,000 users of popcorn is too unreliable as a sole source. But it can still serve their purpose, if used accordingly. It is flawed if they're trying to estimate too much about entire user base, but I don't think they do. Back to the topic. I don't see why some of you confuse bug reports and analytics. They deserve different purposes. There're almost always some bugs, right? Bug reports help to identify, examine, and solve them. Analytics works differently. Ofc it may also be used to identify bugs but that's not the main purpose. One advantage of analytics is, they can determine which bugs should be addressed first, or second, or any other priority, automatically by help of ML and stats (it's far from perfect and have potential risks, but again, I won't go much about it). More number of bug reports do not necessarily mean by itself more priority should be put on. Also debugging is just a part of the purpose of analytics. It's more related to resource assignment. They're not in China where nearly everything can be done by the labor of human with cheap cost (I know, the country is forefront to monitor ppl by ML, but it's another story). I personally do not put 100% trust on them. It will be safe assumption that they MIGHT do anything they can w/ these data. So what important for me is which data are sent and if opt-out really works (and if they can be abused, tho it's not easy to judge), as we can confirm them. Once they started to remove opt-out or to add some more invasive data collection, it's definitely the time to run away or recommend others to do so.
@Daveski17 The argument over what exactly Ubuntu is collecting right now and what it is used for is largely irrelevent to the big picture, which is, so many people are exasperated at third party's extracting information from their personal computers. To put it plain and simple, it is rude.
Yeppers. And this SO reminds me of the early days of the widespread growth of the "Net" - after WWW was invented. WRT Spam. Oh looky - JoWazzoo supplied an email address on a Usenet NG. He MUST want my Spam! And IF he gets POed - he can Always Opt-out.
