this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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Agreed. I actually think Pop OS and Nobara are the best beginner distros right now. Mint is falling a bit behind the times.
I like the idea of Nobara but I'm scared of recommending it because of the Fedora telemetry stuff. Considering GE is a RedHat employee, I don't think he would disable Fedora's telemetry in Nobara.
This might not be the most popular take, but IMO the fuss about Fedora's (proposed) telemetry is way overblown. By all accounts, it seems intended to help the dev team improve OS performance and will still preserve user privacy.
People tend to lump all telemetry together but Fedora's implementation would be significantly less concerning than that which users of Android, Windows and Apple OSs currently put up with on a daily basis.
I agree. A lot of people went over the discussion to voice their opinions. And the proposers have adapted it since. They listen to their users, contrary to other for-profit operating systems (to reiterate, Fedora is NOT for-profit, and it never has been)
While true, the fact that this was proposed by RedHat engineers combined with the fact that RH employs some of the upper echelons of Fedora members, thus having quite some control over Fedora as a project makes me distrust parts of it. Someone like Matthew Miller seems trustworthy, but you can never be sure. And I think thag if this is accepted, it should NOT be implemented in Nobara, because even from the pro-telemetry perspective, it is still harmful, as it skews analytics significantly.
I'm not familiar with your last point - what analytics does it skew and how?
I mean, It does some decisions for the user, when compared to a standard Fedora installz and as such, the number of people who install Lutris, for example, might jump significantly. It's likebwith the GNOME analytics, where, if Nobara would participate, it would significantly increase the amount of users using the dash-to-panel extension, even if most of rhem disable it immediately after. This is just an example, of course. The point is that it's an opinionated, gaming-focused version of Fedora, and runs the risk of skewing the analytics because of the way it does things.
If it's not opt in, it's spyware.
There is literally no data generated by my machine that you can take without me making an active choice to give it to you without being a bad human being. It is not your data. It's mine. There are zero exceptions.
There is exactly one valid way to collect user data. You ask permission, with precise details on how you intend to use it and how you will anonymize it. Then you respect the answer.
There is vast ocean of difference between collecting non-personalized, aggregate data internally to inform UI design decisions or improve system performance on the one hand and secretly logging personal information in order to pass on or sell to third parties on the other.
Literally every single bit of data you collect without explicit opt in is malicious and unacceptable.
There is no possible theoretical excuse for collecting anything from someone else's hardware (without a very deliberate opt in from them) that is forgivable, let alone valid. It is not your data to collect.
If you actually think it benefits the user, you should have no issue asking them for permission and telling them how it's in their interest. The fact that you won't just ask for permission is implicit acknowledgment that users don't agree with you and won't freely give it.
It will most likely be explicit opt-in, if it is implemented.
Source: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Telemetry#Many_users_want_to_require_opt-in_rather_than_opt-out