Thanks everybody for voting and the important discussion. I was quite overwhelmed by all the feedback we received but I read everything.
I believe there is a lot of unfounded doubt and fear about what telemetry data we would collect and how that would impact users. For example some people think it might digitally fingerprint them individually as users, while this is not possible through the impersonal data we would collect. Other people just hear “telemetry” and by principle are against it, while it makes a big difference depending on what data is collected.
Still, I must accept that there is a lot of doubt and even trauma regarding any telemetry, and in this light the results of the poll are also conclusive. As so far I would aim for an opt-in solution for transferring additional hardware and environment data with MDD while only sending a counting request by default as we have done in the past with network manager.
To opt-in we need to add likely a checkbox in Calamares for new installs and in Manjaro settings manager for existing ones. Then we should also limit the transfer of the whole data after opt-in to once a month or so.
Because of the additional work needed I don’t expect MDD to have a final release anytime soon though. There needs to be also other work done server-side to make the data aggregation more robust. On the other side (and on a personal note) I’ll likely reduce my engagement in Manjaro from full-time to a side project, as the project seems less likely than ever to be in a place to make a living from it. So if at all and with all the additional work needed right now I might look into MDD again at some point next year or somebody else will take over.
Thanks again everybody for your fair criticism and your support.