Re: Telemetry on by default kitty

[Leo Prikler <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at>]

Am Samstag, den 12.06.2021, 22:03 -0400 schrieb Bone Baboon:
> Leo Prikler writes:
> > Am Samstag, den 12.06.2021, 23:44 +0200 schrieb Tobias Geerinckx-
> > Rice:
> > > Bone Baboon 写道：
> > > > Should the patch be to remove the kitty package?
> > > 
> > > No.  The telemetry.
> 
> While I appreciate the invitation to write a patch for kitty's
> telemetry
> I am not going to write that patch.  My rational is explained below.
> 
> > If I read terminals.scm, we already disable the telemetry in kitty:
> > 
> > > (invoke "python3" "setup.py" "linux-package"
> > >         ;; Do not phone home.
> > >         "--update-check-interval=0"
> > 
> > @Bone: Did you notice any other telemetry during your further code
> > review (or are you still in the process of reviewing the code)?  If
> > not, please try to cross-check Guix sources to see whether we
> > already
> > disable telemetry, so as to not cause unwarranted panic :)
> 
> It appears problematic to patch kitty's telemetry for several
> reasons.
> 
> kitt's lead developer did not explaining kitty's telemetry when asked
> for further information.  It is not clear if kitty performs other
> kinds
> of telemetry as well.  It would seem that the only way to make sure
> that
> all undesirable telemetry is removed would be a full review of
> kitty's
> source code.
> 
> kitty's lead developer thinks that the telemetry in kitty is
> acceptable.  So there would need to be an ongoing review of commits
> to
> the kitty source code to ensure that undesirable telemetry is not
> added
> in the future.
> 
> I have never been a kitty user and seeing the position kitty's lead
> developer holds on telemetry I will not be a kitty user in the
> future.
> I will not be reviewing the kitty source code or future commits to
> the
> kitty source code.
Are we reading the same issue?  As I understand it, there is the
ethical problem of kitty's telemetry being *enabled* by default rather
than *disabled*, but both parties seem to agree on how to disable it
(completely).  Of course, there's the added bonus of the lead developer
expressing their views in a… rather aggressive tone to put it mildly,
but that's a social problem.

As far as I can see, neither of those pose any technical problem to
disabling telemetry in Guix, which as far as I can see, we do.  It is
important to raise social and ethical issues, but I'm not sure whether
guix-devel is the right platform for that (in that change will be
achieved through discussion here).

Regards,
Leo