[tacos]

And 100x quicker than setting the clearly documented environment variable that disables the feature.

> You can opt-out of the telemetry feature by setting an environment variable DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT (e.g. export on OS X/Linux, set on Windows) to true (e.g. “true”, 1). Doing this will stop the collection process from running.

[ATsch]

It is still opt-out, and thus considered harmful (at least by me)

[sxg]

If it were opt-in, they'd collect significantly less data, and the data they do collect would likely by heavily skewed. Microsoft could be misled by the poor quality of data collected, and an opt-in system could actually be worse than not collecting any data in the first place.

The way I see it, at the end of the day, the decision for Microsoft is really between not collecting data and an opt-out system. If Microsoft chooses not to collect data, then all developers have to live with tools that improve slowly and have issues (possibly security related that could be maliciously abused) that are not fixed as quickly as they could be.

If Microsoft chooses an opt-out system, they can collect the data they need to make sure their tools are working optimally and as intended. Some developers may not be comfortable sharing how they use Microsoft's tools even with no personally identifiable information collected. These people can opt-out while minimally compromising the quality of the data collected. Additionally, the tools are open source, so any developer that's skeptical of how and what data is being collected by the tools can verify Microsoft's claims.

Those are the two options I see. To me, the cost/benefit of the second option greatly outweighs the cost/benefit of the first for all involved. By not collecting data, security issues that could actually compromise your privacy could go unfixed for longer. By collecting data through and opt-out and open source system, Microsoft can fix issues ASAP and developers can verify that data is collected in way that preserves their own privacy.

It seems like a lot of people are knee-jerking to the idea of collecting data through an opt-out system and not actually weighing the cost/benefit of the realistic options. Can you explain how not collecting data has a lower practical cost/benefit ratio than an opt-out and open source system?

[bad_user]

Bullshit. Other companies manage to build quality products without opt-out tracking of their users just fine.

[sxg]

That doesn't refute my point. No data collection still leaves a greater probability of issues being left unresolved for a longer period of time. Also, the code is open source. You can see exactly what data is being collected.

To address your point, it's not possible to be aware of the benefits you're missing out on without data collection.

[tacos]

For me the issue comes down to whether or not Microsoft does anything useful with this data (probably not, if 20 years of NVIDIA blue screen driver failure logs, Windows 8 and OneDrive are any example of how 'big data' impacts Microsoft product quality) versus how many comments I have to read where joeblow52 is personally offended that Microsoft dares to learn what his compile time plus 999,999 other compile times, divided by a million, equals.

[prewett]

How, exactly, are you thinking that Microsoft is going to fix nVidia's buggy drivers? They can collect all the data they want, but at the end of the day, it's nVidia's driver.

[tacos]

I worked there. Ways we solved these sorts of problems include: hardening the other side of the API/HAL when appropriate/possible, simplifying the driver model so that mere mortals could write drivers, writing our own drivers and overwriting known buggy ones for companies that couldn't get their shit together (usually network vendors), adding workarounds to the OS not to use certain features of certain cards, flying external engineers to lavish parties and our driver development labs and compatibility labs and providing one on one engineering development assistance from senior kernel developers, providing free testing of drivers for known problems before release, rolling fixed drivers into Windows updates, providing marketing funds as reward for fixing problems, and not using NVIDIA in the Xbox 360 after using them in the original Xbox as punishment because they were personally responsible for over 80% of blue screens in Windows for the preceding five years.

Sadly the motivation was often to ignore the data or watch it get spun by some jackass with the exact wrong agenda. It's just software, there's always a way to fix things if you really want to.

[sundvor]

Nice work, thanks for the insight!

[jsmeaton]

I just installed these tools and it tells you on first invocation that telemetry is enabled and how ti disable it. I think that buys a little bit of good will. I am also opposed to telemetry by default, but I understand it, and appreciate the opt out message being presented clear and up front.

[newjersey]

I'm one of the self-appointed resident whiners but I think I'll cut them some slack because they've used the magic word "preview".

This case is different from silently adding telemetry on a minor upgrade to a tool in production

[tacos]

"The telemetry is only in the tools and does not affect your app."