this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
95 points (94.4% liked)

Linux

48186 readers
1517 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/55H3DT5CCL73HLMQJ6DK63KCAHZWO7SX/

However, we also want to ensure that the data we collect is meaningful, so gnome-initial-setup will default to displaying the toggle as enabled,even though the underlying setting will initially be disabled. (The underlying setting will not actually be enabled until the user finishes the privacy page, to ensure users have the opportunity to disable the setting before any data is uploaded.) This is to ensure the system is opt-out, not opt-in. This is essential because we know that opt-in metrics are not very useful. Few users would opt in, and these users would not be representative of Fedora users as a whole. We are not interested in opt-in metrics.

Essentially they're playing with words to say it's opt in but if you just click Next like most users will do, it'll be enabled. The developer openly admits few users would opt in and complains that it wouldn't be useful.

top 23 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Screak42@infosec.pub 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I’m almost certain that is not conform with GDPR in europe to pre-enable checkboxes.

I’m no lawyer but I read it that way and will probably be disappointed.

[–] SMillerNL@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If it collects user data it is not. If it collects “1 person downloaded an update” it’s perfectly fine

[–] Screak42@infosec.pub 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I agree, but whatever they say ... who do I trust? I'm paranoid enough to trust only my own network capture.

[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 17 points 1 year ago

If only it was open source. Or if only you could actually do your own network capture. 🤷

[–] SMillerNL@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

That’s not what the GDPR is for though.

[–] fhein@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

but if you just click Next like most users will do, it’ll be enabled

That's the definition of opt-out, so they're telling the truth :) Opt-out is the worse alternative when it comes to unwanted features, opt-in would have been better.

[–] Gecko@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Opt-out helps you capture the group of users that simply do not care about telemetry.

As someone who recently started developing an open-source GUI application for a few thousand users I cannot stress enough how instrumental telemetry has been in fixing a variety of crashes.

[–] Secret300@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

It's still a proposal if you have more to say about opt-in/opt-out specifically they made a new thread to discuss it here

[–] ashley@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think you mixed up opt out and opt in in the title

[–] Raphael@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Oof.

I did.

[–] _calm_bomb_@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago

I'm happier than ever that I moved to a different distro. I was a Fedora user since they started and was happy to use it for a few years at the job. But seeing what's happening with the whole red hat shit it makes me sad for the people who gave a lot of their time and passion for this.

It's getting harder and harder for the Fedora devs to show they are independent of red hat...

[–] Vilian@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

red hat, what are you doing

[–] hglman@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

P R O F I T

[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Though I'm curious how does teletry work in a GNU/Linux system? Is there some daemon like 'telemetryd' that watches /var/log or something..?

[–] Secret300@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

On Endless OS, applications use a D-Bus API (via a small C library, eos-metrics) to record metrics events locally on the device. This API is implemented by a system-wide service, named eos-metrics-event-recorder or eos-event-recorder-daemon (no, I don’t know why it has two different names either), which buffers those events in memory, and periodically submits them anonymously to a server, Azafea, which ingests them into a PostgreSQL database (after a short layover in a Redis queue). If the computer is offline – often the case for Endless OS systems! – events are persisted to a size-limited ring buffer on disk, and submitted when the computer is online.

From https://blogs.gnome.org/wjjt/2023/07/05/endless-oss-privacy-preserving-metrics-system/

Fedora says they intend to deploy endlessOS's metric system

That's lip service to privacy with spyware in reality.

[–] gobbling871@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That said, Fedora Legal has determined that if we collect any personally-identifiable data, the entire metrics system must be opt-in. Since we are only interested in opt-out metrics due to the low value of opt-in metrics, we must accordingly never collect any personally-identifiable data.

Looks like this statement contradicts with their goal.

[–] joojmachine@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How, exactly? They've been saying from the very beginning that they don't need or want personally-identifiable data.

[–] gobbling871@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Opt-in = Low value metrics

Opt-out = Better metrics

If I read that right, looks like Fedora is justifying application of opt-out metrics as long as there's little/no PII present in the data collected.

[–] bbsm3678@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Do you know how this will affect existing installations? Is this gnome only or any desktop?

[–] shreddy_scientist@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

States the gnome-initial-setup. KDE is big on telemetry only being opt-in, so it seems like just the gnome environment. Or at least I hope I'm right...

[–] Raphael@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It won't affect existing installations, definitely won't. You may get a "Welcome Screen" on a new GNOME update that enables it if you just click next.

No idea about KDE, Fedora higher ups don't care about it but KDE does have support for Welcome Screens, they'll likely use that if they can.

[–] what@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago

Metrics can be very valuable, the people who really care can just uncheck the box as part of the initial installation. I regularly submit crash reports which contain far more personal information. I think this is a good move.

load more comments
view more: next ›