Yesterday a change proposal for Fedora 40 was made in Fedora Discussion.
F40 Change Request: Privacy-preserving Telemetry for Fedora Workstation (System-Wide)
https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/f40-change-request-privacy-preserving-telemetry-for-fedora-workstation-system-wide/85320
We understand that this is a controversial subject and want to take steps to clarify what is going on and how you can participate.
To quote from the proposal itself, “Keep in mind this Fedora change proposal is just that: a proposal. It must undergo community review and must be approved by the community-elected Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo) before it can be implemented, just like any other Fedora change proposal. We welcome community participation and fully expect this proposal may need to be modified significantly depending on Fedora community feedback.”
Change proposals are submitted by community members for community discussion. This is part of an intentional process so that all of us can see what is being proposed for the next releases of Fedora.
See here for more info on the change process: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/program_management/changes_policy/#_change_process
In addition, Project Leader https://fosstodon.org/@[email protected] is helping to triage the flow of the conversation in Discourse as it is prompting a lot of feedback. This is actually one of the first change proposals to be made in Discussion instead of a mailing list, and that has provided a new challenge 😅
See here for his notes on the conversation and how to engage: https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/f40-change-request-privacy-preserving-telemetry-for-fedora-workstation-system-wide/85320/319
In all, we’re grateful for the energy and passion the community has shown for this topic! We invite you to look at this and all change proposals coming down the pipeline. We do this in the open for a reason, and that’s to empower you to have a say in your distro.
To that end, let’s please keep the conversation surrounding this constructive. The best place to voice your thoughts and ask questions is in the original change proposal thread or its related threads linked at the top of the original (link below).
Our Four Foundations are important to us as guiding values in the project. Quoting our Friends foundation: “The Fedora community is made up of people from all walks of life, working together to advance free software. […] Like any friends, we occasionally disagree on details, but we believe in finding an acceptable consensus to serve the interests of advancing free software.”
On top of this not being at all final yet, there’s nothing stopping you from just not having it enabled (nothing gets sent until you click through the privacy page with the toggle enabled). Could you explain why it’s still such a big deal to you?
For privacy reasons. Trying to avoid as much telemetry as possible and only use free and open source software.
I’ll wait until it’s confirmed before going back to Fedora.
@Ughtswal @Mr_Figtree
First — the proposal is to collect some very general information , neither particularly sensitive nor personally identifyable.
But second, I feel confused by how many people seem to be conflating “opt-out” with “mandatory”. If we do end up implementing this and you still don’t feel comfortable with it, why not just… push the “no thanks” button?