
Ubuntu Will No Longer Track Which Packages Users Install - realpanzer
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/07/ubuntu-popularity-contest-removed
======
notRobot
Also posted this as a child comment elsewhere in the thread, but:

\---

I don't know about Ubuntu, but while installing Debian the installer makes it
very clear what popularity-contest does and asks the user for explicit
consent.

It also makes it very clear that this setting can be changed later at any
time.

The default option is "I do not wish to participate", so if someone isn't
paying attention during the install process and just hits 'Enter', their
privacy remains intact.

This, IMO, is the perfect way to do telemetry.

~~~
an_d_rew
> This, IMO, is the perfect way to do telemetry.

I understand @notRobot's sentiment, but do not agree with it.

If the default is "no telemetry", then very little telemetry will be
collected.

This is an advantage to the user, but a strong DISadvantage to the collective,
because the distro manager now cannot make informed decisions as to what
packages are installed where and how often.

It really is a balance of "individuals vs the collective" and I don't think
that answering both needs is simple, nor is it cut-and-dried.

~~~
swebs
Do you _really_ need samples from that many users? Wouldn't a sampling of a
few thousand users give you more or less the same results as a sampling from a
few million? And if not, is it worth the bad will you're earning from your
users by treating them like this?

~~~
clusterfish
A random sample – sure, if you have enough traffic to still get decent sample
size, but a sample obtained by users opting in is often close to worthless
because it's not random and so not representative of your userbase.

------
caiobegotti
Popcon (the software that collects such metric) has existed at least for 20
years, via Debian, just for the record for people freaking out for how long
this has been a thing without them reading the installation dialogs.

~~~
boring_twenties
popcon is off by default. You have to explicitly enable it.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Why couldn't they just track at the server end which packages were being
downloaded if they wanted to know which ones are popular?

This seems like something trivial to solve without impacting user privacy if
they're downloading all the packages _from you_ or your mirrors.

Unless the point was to see what PPAs people are using?

~~~
mikepurvis
Quite apart from the difficulty of collecting logs from the hundreds of
official and unofficial mirrors, it also doesn't account for the various
layers of caching.

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tych0
for deb packages I guess?

[https://snapcraft.io/docs/snap-store-metrics](https://snapcraft.io/docs/snap-
store-metrics)

> the store assigns an anonymous identifier, the device-serial, to every new
> snapd client it sees. This exchange usually happens when a new installation
> contacts the store, and the identifier persists for the lifespan of the
> machine.

> Systems running snapd will periodically make a refresh request to the store,
> checking the for the most recent release of each installed snap. At that
> moment, they inform the store of their device-serial along with a list of
> the currently installed snaps.

~~~
GekkePrutser
Lol another reason for me to hate snaps. I didn't yet know that.

PS: My other reasons: \- Much more resource wasteful \- Single store operated
by canonical only \- No simple updating a library with a vulnerability and
having all apps that use that library automatically fixed. \- Makes really
messy virtual mountpoints everywhere.

~~~
craftinator
Have you tried opening the calculator in Ubuntu? On my laptop it takes a full
3 seconds for the GUI to come up, assuming I have nothing else running. 3 full
wall clock seconds. It's actually faster to pull out my phone and open the
calculator on it than my laptop. Which is what I do now, every time. So, if
you want people to look for alternatives to your application, only provide it
as a Snap.

~~~
treesknees
You can take your hands off the keyboard and mouse, dig your phone out of your
pocket, unlock it, open the app drawer, scroll and find calculator, tap it and
open it, under 3 seconds? I doubt that.

~~~
mrkstu
I just picked my iPhone up off the desk (where I keep it charging when using a
computer) pulled down the shortcut screen and opened the pinned calculator
app. Was roughly 2 seconds from thought to screen. Windows calculator just
took me about that- press Windows button, type 'cal' press return, actual
launch basically instantaneous. Mac would be analogous to Windows.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Seems more likely that you just don't notice time passing whilst active
(getting your phone out) that you do notice whilst passive (waiting for app
launch).

KDE/Plasma does calculations in the launcher - which comes up immediately. Or
you could open your console (I use Yakuake) and use bash/python/bc
-i/whatever.

~~~
mrkstu
You're pointing to instances where snaps aren't involved- kinda missing the
point. Just because there are other ways to get the desired result, the
optimal path used by most people is seriously impaired for no benefit.

------
nsl73
Wow! When did they start doing this? I’m glad they stopped!

I’m really grateful to Ubuntu for helping me get deeper into Linux in 2007,
but I would never recommend them to anyone today.

~~~
flattone
Why would you not point a linux noob to ubuntu?

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Years ago(I started around 2008 or 2009 I think), Ubuntu was different because
it Just Worked. It came with lots of drivers, easy defaults, and guis for
everything. You could easily dual-boot it with Windows(there was a windows
executable that would get it done without burning a CD or dealing with an
iso), and could be installed on just about any computer at the time.

Nowadays, lots of distros are just as easy(Debian, fedora, Linux mint), come
with all drivers, work on basically all systems, and don't spy on you. Ubuntu
isn't as easy to dual-boot windows now too. There's basically no advantage to
Ubuntu now except community.

~~~
mrmuagi
> There's basically no advantage to Ubuntu now except community.

Ding Ding Ding. This is why I still recommend Ubuntu, there's a community and
a wealth of knowledge out there for working with Ubuntu.

Though if you are more experienced and deal with nuanced issues you will find
often the community is outdated and this is a double edged sword -- a lot of
material out there is for older Ubuntu distros and is no longer relevant.

------
londons_explore
Simple server logs for package downloads will give a very good idea which
users have which packages installed.

Ubuntu doesn't even run all the mirrors, so hasn't even got control of if
people are collecting this data.

------
rlpb
From the article: "Is “Ubuntu removes thing which doesn’t work and no-one
uses” front page news?"

In other words, the headline is false because "Will No Longer" implies the
opposite, which even the author acknowledges is not true.

~~~
Shared404
Because omgubuntu is almost entirely clickbait. That I fell for. Again.

------
space_ghost
This has been in Debian since forever, and the installer asks if you want it.
I've always opted to not install it since it's my opinion that my package
choices are weird and shouldn't -at all- influence the distro defaults.

------
swiley
Geese, I’m surprised they were doing it to begin with! This sort of thing is
why I won’t touch VScode and fsharp.

How do people building these things become convinced this is ok?

~~~
Analemma_
> How do people building these things become convinced this is ok?

Because they have the data proving that opt-in telemetry means no telemetry.
Every time this topic comes up, HN sticks its fingers in its ears and refuses
to accept this, but it's the truth. 99% of users, even for a developer-focused
application like VSCode, just click through and accept the defaults. So if you
want telemetry that isn't useless for any practical purposes, it has to be
opt-out.

If you want, you can have a separate argument about whether having the
telemetry is worth it, but if you've had that discussion and decided the
answer is yes, then opt-out follows immediately from that.

~~~
GekkePrutser
Just because a supplier wants to have telemetry doesn't suddenly make it
ethical to do opt-out (or even forced like MS does with Windows 10!).

If they care about their users and it's not possible to have worthwhile
telemetry with opt-in, they simply can't have it.

~~~
Analemma_
That's a strange definition of "can't". VSCode can and does, and it's the most
popular editor in the world [0].

[0]:
[https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#development-e...](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#development-
environments-and-tools)

~~~
nitrogen
It's the same definition that says you "can't" steal your coworkers' lunch as
they are eating it.

------
jamieweb
Just to confirm, this only seems to relate to popcon/popularity-contest, and
not the other data collection features.

The other two main ones are Apport for crash reporting, and ubuntu-report,
which sends system info if opted-in at install.

------
falcolas
Homebrew - please take note of this and follow this precedent. Yes, you are
(now) opt-in; so was Ubuntu's.

~~~
saagarjha
Last I recall, they changed from collecting analytics without notifying the
user to keeping it opt-out but explaining how to do so on first install. Has
this changed?

~~~
falcolas
IIRC they had an explicit question last time I installed it, but it’s been a
few years now.

------
rrauenza
I had a momentary panic the title meant at the system level - a system admin's
nightmare!

------
2bitencryption
how do we know? the snap server is proprietary and closed-source, right?

~~~
kevin_b_er
This is the apt system that's losing the statistics system. Ubuntu is likely
collecting data from the closed source proprietary snap system that they push
users toward.

