I run Gentoo, which has a telemetry use flag. This will enable telemetry for a number of packages.
I hate telemetry on non-FOSS software like Windows, but is there real harm in doing it with FOSS software? I like to think I’d be helping the devs create better software.
Telemetry, *supposed to be* only sending data that would benefit the user, by helping the developers to understand what the users really need.
Microsoft and Apple abused that term and it became just ‘data collection’. FOSS telemetry shouldn’t, and usually - hopefully - wouldn’t collect unnecessary data, to sell it back as adverts.
So if you trust <project-name>, I don’t see why not to enable it. It just helps the devs, and you too, at the end.
It’s all about transparency and giving you the choice to opt in. When it comes to KDE, you can clearly see what is being sent to help the developers. The same cannot be said for Windows and closed source software.
I absolutely love the KDE approach and I always enable telemetry for FOSS apps if I can see what exactly is being sent. Hell, I wouldn’t even mind some opt out telemetry if I could see what data the app sends back “home”. That’s, obviously, if the data sent doesn’t violate my privacy significantly
Unless I’m misunderstanding, that’s all related to those KDE packages. I’d say if you’re a heavy user of Plasma or apps relying on those KDE packages you might as well enable it.
Up to your comfort level though, personally I don’t mind for stuff like that. On KDE’s community site they have this showing what telemetry is collected for Plasma.
I use KDE which is why I’m interested in this in the first place. I think I’ll enable it.
Generally yes unless you have specific privacy concerns. It helps developers know what features people are using so they can be prioritized for development and maintenance, issues people encounter, hardware they’re running on, etc.
I’m reminded of Firefox removing ALSA support a few years ago because according the their telemetry no one used it. This made all of the people using ALSA very mad - but they all had telemetry disabled so how was Mozilla supposed to know?
I personally have some telemetry on. Just like you, I like to think I’m helping the devs.
I enabled it all. I read through what they collect and it’s all very mild.
Up to you, but it can benefit devs and users. I just used a bunch of telemetry about GPU hardware that came from a Stable Diffusion project. I could see what basic hardware and kernel were run by ~5000 people, determined ~700 were on Linux proper, what hardware worked, and their SD iteration times. That was helpful for deciding what hardware to buy. Also I used the Linux Hardware Probe website to see what hardware was tested and working on new machines. I highly recommend checking out that project, and scanning/submitting your hardware, especially if you are on a newer OEM machine. It is an incredible resource to use when you’re unsure what to buy.
