SvnsetM0dality13h ago
Cassidy James   
What do you think is the venn diagram of people who say, “GNOME doesn’t listen to what users actually need? How many users change the default settings?” and “Any metrics or telemetry are inherently evil and must be avoided at all costs!”
Mar 21 at 4:08pmWeb
Show threadCassidy James   1d ago

To be clear, I'm very cautious when it comes to metrics or telemetry. But at the same time, I understand that GNOME *literally cannot measure* how many people change any settings, which is always the argument for GNOME doing something differently.

“Everyone installs X extension!” Do they? How can we know that?

“Everyone changes Y setting!” Oh really? How can we validate that?

“Everyone wants GNOME to work like Z!” Oh, I would love to see the user research data!

Show threadCassidy James   1d ago
Without that, we design an opinionated experience, listen to the *aggregate* feedback (not just the loudest people on Reddit or Mastodon), and continuously iterate.
Show threadachill1d ago
@cassidy most people are just reactionaries anyway and not worth listening to
Show threadPaul1d ago

@cassidy It's kind of like voting - don't vote, can't complain about pavements and street lighting.

Providing telemetry and accepting it will be aggregated with others is the easiest (and nicest) way you can help influence an open source project. Even if you do not like a future change, your telemetry has been part of the decision.

Which is a bit awesome really.

Show threadNeal Gompa (ニール・ゴンパ) 22h ago

@cassidy At least with extensions, you *do* somewhat have sizable data points with extensions.gnome.org and extensions distributors ship by default.

Same goes for settings. If distributors are changing them or considering changing them, that's a decent signal for consideration.

As for the last point... 🤷

Show threadEgee22h ago
@cassidy I think telemetry is super important! But as a privacy-conscious user I need better assurances besides "its totally anonymous - trust us 😉". That's my main reason for turning it off.

On test machines and some homelab stuff I leave it on. Like I have a workstation thing with KDE and its on level 1 or 2 telemetry and that's fine.
Show threadCassidy James   22h ago
@egee right, the entire stack should be open source and auditable and ideally involve differential privacy/randomized response to guarantee individual anonymity. But it’s hard to propose that when the knee-jerk response from a very loud minority of folks is, “BOO, TELEMETRY EVIL, GNOME EVIL!”
Show threadPaul1d ago
@cassidy I have a funny feeling that the overlap is quite sizeable.
Show threadZak 1d ago
@cassidy As someone who has worked in privacy for years now, "all telemetry is evil" drives me bonkers because it totally disregards the work that people like me do to ensure that it isn't. I'm sure the FOSS community is great when it comes to this.
Show threadRasmus Lindegaard1d ago
@cassidy are we talking about a perfect circle here?
Show threadAndrew Mark McCall1d ago
@cassidy I bet those people have bluesky accounts as well.
Show threadEmmanuele Bassi1d ago
@cassidy Same people that think what they want should they override what other people want. “GNOME doesn’t listen to what users want” is just code for “GNOME should only listen to me”
Show threadJorge Castro1d ago
@ebassi @cassidy I just ask for the chart. Funny, they never have charts
Show threadSchroedinger's Possum1d ago
@cassidy I also have no data, but me and most people that I know using gnome use vanilla gnome. Don't know where the "everyone installs 15 extensions" comes from.
Vanilla gnome and the people behind it are great.
Show threadPietro Fanzola1d ago

@cassidy In fact I really think that GNOME should absolutely implement a telemetry system like kde does for plasma, I would love to send my data to improve the ecosystem for everyone!

Maybe for GNOME 51/52...

Show threadBrett Edmond Carlock23h ago

@cassidy
I agree that telemetry needs handled incredibly carefully, fully opt-in, fully transparent, and fully patch-outable for packagers.

I think fwupd/gnome-firmware nailed it.

As for GNOME not listening... GNOME is the DE I setup for everyone I transition to Linux, with varied tweaks/extensions per person.

GTK and adwaita HIG and toolkits make, IMO, the most pleasant and usable UX.

Do I use GNOME? No, I am highly opinionated as well and XFCE suits better, but I watch with interest!

Show threadJon S. von Tetzchner23h ago

@cassidy

We do not do telemetry at Vivaldi. I believe in listening to our users. I know some do not agree. They think that they know better and that design is best left to designers or telemetry. That is how we, IMHO, end up with sub-optimal products.

Design is hard. You want things to look good and you want it to function well. The issue is that we also have different requirements and wishes. Some are not negotiable even.

At Vivaldi we have tried to provide a lot of options, so people can get it their way. We did it again with the latest release where we added new functionality for tailoring the browser to your needs with auto hide and follower tab. Not everyone will use that, but some will and they will love it.

Show threadAlexey Skobkin22h ago

@jon
There was a discussion about that already.

We do not do telemetry at Vivaldi

You do. But very modest compared to others:

Мы получаем только информацию о версии браузера, платформе, на которой он работает, языке локали, и всё это в обезличенном виде, без привязки к пользователю
We only receive information about the browser version, the platform it's running on, and the locale language, all in an anonymized form without being linked to the user.

source

Which is fine from my PoV. Although for some users even this level is not acceptable.

P.S. Yes, Ilia was arguing that it's not a telemetry, but I don't think anyone agreed with him there.
P.P.S. I'm a Vivaldi user. And I mostly like what you do with the browser.

@cassidy

Shpankov (@[email protected])

@[email protected] > Браузер Vivaldi, который по умолчанию отправляет статистику посещений Браузер Vivaldi не отправляет статистику посещений. Вообще ничего, связанного с активностью пользователей. Мы получаем только информацию о версии браузера, платформе, на которой он работает, языке локали, и всё это в обезличенном виде, без привязки к пользователю. Мы считаем количество браузеров, а не следим за действиями пользователей. > 1. Нельзя посмотреть исходники и убедиться, что там действительно нет идентификаторов. Код нашего счётчика открыт и доступен для изучения вместе с другими исходниками браузера - https://vivaldi.com/source/ > 2. Нельзя гарантированно отключить сбор полностью, а не только "по заверениям" Можно. Заблокируйте доступ к серверу статистики. > 3. Нет независимого технического аудита, который это подтверждает А кто-то хоть раз пробовал этот аудит сделать? Почему претензии к нам? > Либо это браузер про удобство с ценой в виде статистики, либо про жёсткую приватность. Одновременно продавать оба образа — нечестно по отношению к пользователю. Статистика количества браузеров не является приватной информацией пользователя. Вообще. Это просто количественные показатели, ничего не говорящие о том, кто пользуется браузером. Вы придумали то, чего нет - Vivaldi не собирает данные о пользователях.

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