Why wait for Microsoft to catch up with what we've been doing for decades?
Get Plasma, a modern, fully functional, clean, privacy-respecting, non-intrusive operating system now, regardless from where you live and ditch Windows for good.
this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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@[email protected] @[email protected] Never heard of Plasma, nor am I in linux ecosystem yet, but from brief googling Plasma telemetry and developer attitude towards it is concerning
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/f2bg69/kde_plasma_518_comes_with_builtin_telemetry_optin/
@jex @[email protected] @[email protected] @radioactiveradio While its FOSS, the telemetry is a slippery slope, and a single module now is the sign of a direction they've chosen. The flippant attitude of a developer mentioned in that reddit thread is worrying to say the least.
I'm aware its a single example about a project I know nothing about.
Slippery slope my ass.
You really think a community driven project such as KDE would be allowed to add invasive telemetry? The same community that would rather hard fork audacity then deal with their bs? KDE is not muse group or canonical, it's just not going to happen and it hasn't happened over the 3y period since that brain dead Reddit post.
What flippant attitude? The part where they tell the poster to just read the source code? That's not flippant that's the exact answer to the question. If you don't trust it just check out the source, it's all out in the open. If you don't like it don't use it, same as the telemetry alsame as the desktop. FOSS is about choice, you can choose to use Gnome or fork KDE and remove the telemetry yourself. Or maybe just flip a switch and turn it off.
Edit: Also the whole argument about how the "average user can't read source code" is useless. Remember when audacity put 'actually questionable' telemetry in their code? Everyone was up and arms about it, distros still don't provide the new updated versions of audacity in their repos. Now imagine that with KDE, it's a much bigger project, any average user would figure it out with 5 seconds of reddit or a simple google search.
Been using it for over a year now and there's just one slider for telemetry that sends them anonymous desktop/KDE apps usage data, and you can limit how much you wanna send them. And i personally haven't heard of any controversy surrounding that. Also its opt in unlike windows.
The telemetry is transparent, you literally know everything that gets sent. You don't even have to read the source code, it deadass tells you. Unlike Windows.
Yep, and it's opt-in so if you've never turned it on explicitly, then it's off.
Seriously though, KDE's slider that lets you adjust how much / how little data to send (if any) is probably the best implementation of opt-in telemetry that I've seen in a while.
@shved @[email protected] @[email protected] Sorry, but this is a pretty opinionates post about a simple feature. Yes, KDE has Telemetry options. But these are entirely opt in, so unless you explicitely choose to send data you will never send data. The data that is being sent is fully transparent, as we have access to the source code. I belief it is mostly used for interface decisions (such as what window sizes are people using). So I cannot see the point.
@shved @[email protected] @[email protected] is opt-in, not opt-out.
No telemetry gets collected unless you explicitly give permission (and they don't nag or try to trick you into giving it). Overall, KDE is incredibly good for privacy