[aviaviavi]

> The problem here is that i DON'T tolerate this from large companies either. I find the pixel tracking thing outrageous and disable images by default in my email client to avoid it.

If you are already using OSS today and grabbing that software over the internet, you are tolerating it even if you claim otherwise. If you pull something down from GitHub, Microsoft has all the data that we're talking about here.

> I understand your argument, I just find it personally strongly disagreeable

Fair! And I understand yours too. I also think your argument is more idealistic than practical for the current state of the ecosystem, especially considering how many parties already have access to this web traffic data. Maintainers having this data too is a very benign additional party to have access to it. Furthermore, it's a concrete way we can all chip in to help OSS maintainers and make their jobs a little bit easier, short of reaching for your credit card (which we should all be doing too).