I always opt in to error reporting for OS projects and this will be opt in. Telemetry will be used to create a better product. Itβs hard to imagine a real privacy problem from using Audacity and opting in to telemetry. Maybe the problem is giving the data to google?
It's particularly insensitive to opt for GA for telemetry at this early stage since it's so controversial in open-source. People are rightfully concerned.
Harvesting information from people when you don't absolutely need to is bad, always. That's why honest people call it "spying" and not "telemetry." There's no such thing as "innocuous" information: the history of tech is rife with examples of seemingly bland info being pieced together to reveal something that was supposed to be secret.
Beyond that, if a mechanism for spying is constructed, there's nothing to stop it from being hijacked to collect other information down the road, either by bad actors or the new owners themselves. "Telemetry" increases the attack surface of a fucking free audio editor for no reason at all. "But we have to spy on users or we won't be able to fix bugs!" is the laziest thing I've ever heard, and also the most disingenuous. The real reason to collect this info is so you can start doing fun things with it, like targeted advertising.
> Harvesting information from people when you don't absolutely need to is bad, always.
I think it's easy to justify a need for it. For example, insufficient information to address wider problems and understand usability in the software. Done, need justified.
> the history of tech is rife with examples of seemingly bland info being pieced together to reveal something that was supposed to be secret.
The history of human interaction with anything is rife with examples of seemingly bland info being pieced together to reveal something that was supposed to be secret.
> Beyond that, if a mechanism for spying is constructed, there's nothing to stop it from being hijacked to collect other information down the road, either by bad actors or the new owners themselves.
There is nothing stopping anything from being hijacked to collect other information down the road, either by bad actors or the new owners themselves.
> "Telemetry" increases the attack surface of a fucking free audio editor for no reason at all.
I just gave you a reason. You may not like it, but it is a reason and it is a valid reason.
> "But we have to spy on users or we won't be able to fix bugs!" is the laziest thing I've ever heard
You even acknowledge that it is a reason, you may not like it, but it is a reason.
> The real reason to collect this info is so you can start doing fun things with it, like targeted advertising.
Yes, let's make targetted advertising based on the session time period, audition crashes, usage of effects, sound generators, analysis tools, file formats along with OS and Audacity versions???
