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Ubuntu Wants To Collect Data About Your System -- Starting With 18.04 LTS (fossbytes.com)
In an announcement on Ubuntu mailing list, Will Cooke, on behalf of the Ubuntu Desktop team, announced Canonical's plans to collect some data related to the users' system configuration and the packages installed on their machines. From a report: Before you read anything further, it's important to note that users will have the option to opt-out of this data collection. The company plans to add a checkbox to the installer, which would be checked by default. The option could be like: "Send diagnostics information to help improve Ubuntu." As per your convenience, you can opt-out during the installation. An option to do the same will also be made available in the Privacy panel of GNOME Settings. With this data collection, the team wishes to improve the daily experiences of the Ubuntu users. It's worth noting that the collected data will be sent over encrypted connections and no IP addresses will be tracked. To be precise, the collected data will include: flavour and version of Ubuntu, network connectivity or not, CPU family, RAM, disk(s) size, screen(s) resolution, GPU vendor and model, OEM manufacturer, location (based on the location selection made during install), no IP information, time taken for Installation, auto-login enabled or not, disk layout selected, third party software selected or not, download updates during install or not, livePatch enabled or not.
"to improve the daily experiences of the Ubuntu users" they will be collecting "flavour and version of Ubuntu, network connectivity or not, CPU family, RAM, disk(s) size, screen(s) resolution, GPU vendor and model, OEM manufacturer, location (based on the location selection made during install), no IP information, time taken for Installation, auto-login enabled or not, disk layout selected, third party software selected or not, download updates during install or not, livePatch enabled or not"?! How could that goal be accomplished with so poor means? I can only think of one type of actions: spamming, targetted advertisement or any other form of custom nagging. Without forgetting about the potential security implications of an eventual data breach! And you let it enabled by default (the disabled alternative would have looked much more user-concerned)! And within the Linux community, which is precisely well known for not being too understanding with this kind of things?! Why? Potentially losing so much to get almost nothing?! Workbook example of a bad decision.
Note that I am currently using Ubuntu and, in principle, will install this new LTS version. Curiously, I have recently moved my main machine from Windows to Linux precisely to escape from Windows 10 invasive, controlling, imposing, etc. actions. I will not stop using Linux but, if Canonical starts going in certain direction, I would certainly stop using Ubuntu and all their products.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
I've been lazy and I've been using Ubuntu (or Kubuntu to be specific) since around 8.04 or so.
However, I also value privacy and I'm not fond of the data collecting business practices of major tech firms.
I value convenience (as I'm getting old) and I like the large apt package set, lots of stuff pre-packaged and ready to run by a a single command line.
I've have or had love affairs with C, Python, Zsh, Haskell, Mercurial, OpenFoam, Embedded, NetBSD (albeit 15 years ago), BeOS, and some other stuff...
I like KDE's features and configurability, but don't like the bloat. I've tried XFCE (&Co) on my lo-end machines, like the speed but they lack some features.
I don't really care if I run a BSD or Linux kernel and user space. I can download and build by source, but that should be restricted to the odd stuff. I expect to find most common stuff pre-compiled and pre-packaged. I value stability, but for some packages, I don't want them to be three years old. (Case in point: eclipse).
I've done enough X configuration for a couple of life times. Basic networking should also work out of the box.
Is it time for me to turn to Debian? Or Manjaro? Or... go hard core Arch? Am I too lazy for those?
I'd suppose they're tracking whether there's network connectivity during the installation process (to make decisions about building options that require it), which can be remembered and reported later on once connectivity has been established hours or days later. Also the type of connectivity (wired vs. wifi vs. cellular) could be relevant.
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or maybe users should have the option to opt-in instead?
Yeah, but you know, the vast majority of users would never check that box, even if that could actually help us. If it really helps the Ubuntu folks (and us eventually), we need to know exactly what is sent, and if it's anonymous. Furthermore, Ubuntu is open source ; the devs would not dare to retrieve the kind of private data we don't want to make public.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
No only should you have the option to opt in, I don't think my machine should be reporting anything to anyone outside of a bug check. You want to know something about my machine you ask me.
Drop a read me file in the root directory with a link to a site that I can submit the information that I choose to submit.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Power users tend to turn off this kind of telemetries. So what they end up collecting are always habit of less knowledgeable computer users. Features that advanced users need are often looked "rarely used / unnecessary" from such stats. The end result is a wrongly done dumb down of interface.
Now another company fails to realize that and going to mess up their design again.