Fedora considers "privacy-preserving" telemetry [LWN.net]

Fedora considers "privacy-preserving" telemetry

Posted Jul 8, 2023 20:10 UTC (Sat) by mikebenden (guest, #74702)
In reply to: Fedora considers "privacy-preserving" telemetry by Wol
Parent article: Fedora considers "privacy-preserving" telemetry

> > If telemetry is enabled by default, [...] that could quite possibly be the last straw that pushes me to another distro.
>
> Well why not jump now and quit moaning.

Are *you* a Fedora user, or just taking pot shots ? (admittedly, he *did* line that one right up for you, tbh) :D

All joking aside, up until a few years ago I would have *never* comtemplated using anything *but* Fedora. Have been using the original RedHat (before RHEL), then Fedora, since the late 90s. In the last few years, I've been getting an unsettling feeling that a faction within Fedora's "leadership" is taking the distro into annoying and unhelpful (to me personally) directions, and have started thinking I need to emotionally prepare for the day Fedora decides to leave *me*.

It is useful information (again, to me) that I'm not the only one feeling that way.

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Fedora considers "privacy-preserving" telemetry

Posted Jul 9, 2023 8:21 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (6 responses)

> > Well why not jump now and quit moaning.

> Are *you* a Fedora user, or just taking pot shots ? (admittedly, he *did* line that one right up for you, tbh) :D

I think at the moment we have an invasion of the moaners ... all complaints about what other people are(n't) doing, and all armchair warriors themselves ...

I failed to join the Red Hat eco-system back when it was Red Hat, not RHEL and all that.

Just like I failed to join the Debian eco-system. I tried both, and just couldn't get on with them.

My first linux was Universe Linux, kernel 1.3, and then SuSE. Then when some important (to me) software refused to install on latest SuSE, I went to gentoo, where I've been ever since.

Gentoo for me, SUSE for other people I support, and Slack as my emergency disks ...

Cheers,
Wol

Fedora considers "privacy-preserving" telemetry

Posted Jul 9, 2023 11:11 UTC (Sun) by mikebenden (guest, #74702) [Link] (5 responses)

> all complaints about what other people are(n't) doing, and all armchair warriors themselves ...

As mentioned earlier, I used pre-RHEL RedHat and then Fedora since forever. Used, sysadmin-ed for a 500-ish user department, and maintained a few software packages of interest to my community. So I don't consider myself an armchair warrior. I'm also *clearly* not one of the charismatic "organizer" or "leadership" types ("not officer material", as they say in the military :) ).

So I tend to quietly work around the annoyances, and mostly quietly worry about the charismatic workstation types pushing "secure boot", "flatpaks", and now, most recently, "telemetry".

I think secure boot is nice in theory, but in practice mostly ends up having a vendor or corporate entity lord it over the user in physical possession of the device (a kind of "control collar" of sorts, so I hate it instinctively). Secondly, if we're going to treat the distro as simply a host organism for a bunch of third-party flatpaks, why the $#%@ even bother anymore. Lastly, telemetry is actually the least "evil" or scary thing, but the optics are bad, particularly when put in context with all the other stuff.

As long as I can install from the "everything" repositories, and customize my kickstart scripts to get the exact install I want, and disable or ignore the annoying bits, I should be fine. But I wonder for how long I can get away with that, given the overall direction of the "prevailing winds"...

Fedora considers "privacy-preserving" telemetry

Posted Jul 9, 2023 14:52 UTC (Sun) by jzb (editor, #7867) [Link] (1 responses)

I think you'd find more interest and sympathy by solely identifying and voicing your technological issues and avoiding the digs at people who're doing the work.

The armchair quarterback analogy is somewhat apt here. Producing an open source project can be a spectator sport if you're content to watch and accept what comes out of it. Otherwise, suit up and play or coach, or carry water buckets, whatever, if you want a voice. If you want ultimate control, buy a team. Of course buying a team is out of reach for most people, but so is providing all the infrastructure and people time to produce Fedora.

I could go on at length with this analogy, but suffice to say that Fedora is ultimately at the intersection of commercial and community interests and is always going to be driven in part by changing commercial requirements.

Like choosing to follow a pro sports team, there's always going to be the possibility that the owners or players will do something to disappoint you - and I don't just mean losing games or championships. I say this as someone who is originally from near St. Louis, which has lost not just one but *two* professional NFL teams to other cities in my lifetime. One hopes St. Louis has learned its lesson by now.

We are where we are with the state of open source today because the vast majority of people have been content to sit on the sidelines and hope that shouting at the owners, coaches, and players would be sufficient to influence things forever.

As you say, how long can "the community" get away with that? If you're a Cardinals or Rams football fan, only so long as you don't care what city they're playing in. If you're a vendor-sponsored project user, only so long as there's not a huge disconnect between the vendor's needs and your wants.

Fedora considers "privacy-preserving" telemetry

Posted Jul 9, 2023 15:56 UTC (Sun) by mikebenden (guest, #74702) [Link]

> I think you'd find more interest and sympathy

Not looking for sympathy, but thanks anyway :)

> The armchair quarterback analogy is somewhat apt here. Producing an open source project can be a spectator sport if you're content to watch and accept what comes out of it.

Well, maintaining Fedora for people in my care, and maintaining Fedora RPM packages for software I (and those people) care about is, IMHO, dead-center in the "community member" territory. Not part of the "intelligentsia", like what *you* may be used to.

> content to sit on the sidelines and hope that shouting at the owners, coaches, and players would be sufficient to influence things forever.

I think (re. OP's suggestion he might switch away from fedora, which propmpted the whole "moaner" thing I then felt compelled to reply to) it's useful for us "peasants" to make our voices heard. The "high rollers" will do what they will do, and we will vote with our feet. I'd rather not have to, but I'm perfectly qualified to do so (with great deals of annoyance and unnecessary extra work, but qualified and able to nonetheless).

Your thing about buying a team or learning to play NFL-class football as an alternative to yelling at the owners and players from the sidelines does read a lot like "try eating cake when the bread runs out", whether you intended it that way or not.

I'll stop here, since I already said what I had to say, and see no further point in having an actual *argument* :) Cheers!

Fedora considers "privacy-preserving" telemetry

Posted Jul 9, 2023 18:27 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (2 responses)

> I think secure boot is nice in theory, but in practice mostly ends up having a vendor or corporate entity lord it over the user in physical possession of the device (a kind of "control collar" of sorts, so I hate it instinctively)

And here - although you do word it correctly - you piss off a load of people who MIGHT be on your side.

You get annoyed by people who don't let you do what you like with stuff in your possession - well if you found a £50 note in someone else's handbag and spent it the police might like a word with you - it's called theft. But it was in your possession! ...

If, on the other hand, you'd said "lord it over the OWNER of the device", I'd agree with you.

My company laptop is locked up down the wazoo, and I see nothing wrong with that. It is THEIR device, after all. If I can't do my work as a result, I get paid for doing nothing ... brilliant !!!

Those people who think possession is nine tenths of law piss of the one tenth who actually own the device ...

Cheers,
Wol

Fedora considers "privacy-preserving" telemetry

Posted Jul 9, 2023 20:24 UTC (Sun) by mikebenden (guest, #74702) [Link] (1 responses)

> And here - although you do word it correctly - you piss off a load of people who MIGHT be on your side.

I chose my words carefully, thanks for noticing!

> If, on the other hand, you'd said "lord it over the OWNER of the device", I'd agree with you.

Happy to agree on our disapproval of vendors/manufacturers retaining "de facto" ownership on devices they sell to us and which we own "de jure". I hold my fruity-phone at arms length, with two fingers, with disgust (metaphorically speaking), knowing it would thrown me under the bus in a New York minute the moment my interests diverged from those of its manufacturer.

> My company laptop is locked up down the wazoo, and I see nothing wrong with that.
> It is THEIR device, after all. If I can't do my work as a result, I get paid for doing nothing ... brilliant !!!

Agree on the use case being a perfectly legal one. However, anyone wishing to employ me who would refuse to trust me to self-manage a machine they bought for me (and therefore legally own themselves) to our mutual benefit can fuck right off. This may mean that I'm privileged (in that I can afford to turn down work when my principles conflict with those of a potential employer), but I really really hate the concept of a "control collar", and would consider it insulting and humiliating to be subjected to it. As such, I feel that a community valuing freedom should not obsequiously aid such corporate oppression. Which is another reason I feel the "prevailing winds" of Fedora may be blowing in a direction in which I don't wish to go.

You should obviously feel free to do *you*, of course... :)

With all that out of the way, I'm done, and going back into anonymous lurking mode -- Cheers!

Fedora considers "privacy-preserving" telemetry

Posted Jul 9, 2023 22:34 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> Agree on the use case being a perfectly legal one. However, anyone wishing to employ me who would refuse to trust me to self-manage a machine they bought for me (and therefore legally own themselves) to our mutual benefit can fuck right off

Well, you're a sys-admin. I'm a NoSQL database guy. One of the main reasons our systems are locked down is the increasing threat from crackers. I'm happy to leave all that security stuff to others.

It is frustrating, though, that I can't do what I want. But most of that is actually getting permission to run the software I want, which I'm hoping to get. And seeing as the software I want - if I succeed - is likely to replace Excel and require support from elsewhere, then the company has every right not to let me run riot introducing stuff that nobody else has a clue how to support. Bus factor and all that ...

Cheers,
Wol