RE: [External] : Re: Telemetry, opt-in,opt-out [was: Proposal: new default bindings for winner and windmove]

[Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> >> Opt-out collection of anonymous metrics has been an industry standard
> >> for many years now.
> > Whatever "industry standard" means. Industry standard is
> > surveillance capitalism these days. Not something to strive
> > for, not in free software's context, I think.
> 
> Yup, I'd be happy to see some kind of statistics-gathering system
> included in Emacs if it can help us decide how to evolve the projects
> and its default settings, but it definitely needs to be opt-in: Emacs
> should never contact a host without the user "explicitly" requesting it
> (there's some wiggle room about what "explicitly" can mean, admittedly,
> but in terms of sending telemetry it's pretty clear to me that it needs
> to be opt-in).

It's also possible to just ask users - poll them,
as RMS often suggests.

Neither polls nor opt-in telemetry are without
their limitations/problems, of course.  But the
point is that, if and when Emacs dev wants to
consider whether to add some default key bindings,
it can help to get input from the wider user base.