Re: Free software telemetry and the Guix System

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi,

Bone Baboon <bone.baboon@disroot.org> writes:
> What types of telemetry in free software programs are compatible with
> the Guix System?

The relevant text in the GNU FSDG is here:
<https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html#no-malware>

  "No Malware

   The distro must contain no DRM, no back doors, and no spyware."

Of course, this depends on our understanding of what it means to be
e"spyware".  There might be edge cases where this is not clear, but I
hope we can all agree that _any_ kind of telemetry *must* be disabled by
default.

> This is a general question but Audacity is a current example of a free
> software program that is in the process of introducing telemetry to some
> degree.  It does not look like Audacity has implemented telemetry yet.
> Here are two links that provide further information.
>
> https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835

The opening message of that pull request states:

  "1. Telemetry is strictly optional and disabled by default.  No data
      is shared unless you choose to opt-in and enable telemetry.
   
   2. Telemetry only works in the builds made by GitHub CI from the
      official repo (the telemetry URLs are only defined there).
   
   3. If you are compiling Audacity from source, we will provide a CMake
      option to enable the telemetry code. This option will be turned
      off by default."

and:

   "Just to reiterate, telemetry is completely optional and disabled by
    default. We will try to make it as clear as possible exactly what
    data is collected if the user chooses to opt-in and enable
    telemetry. We will consider adding the fine-grained controls that
    some of you have asked for."

If these claims are true, then I think this is quite satisfactory for
our purposes.  I wouldn't even object to enabling the telemetry code via
the CMake build-time option, as long as it's "opt-in", i.e. that each
user must explicitly enable it, and only after being made aware of the
consequences of doing so.

What do you think?

Thanks for raising this issue.

      Regards,
        Mark

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