The article can be viewed on the WayBack Machine:
And the PDF relating to Manjaro:
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…but the normal behaviour of people seems to be that zero data is acceptable… even with complete and open implementation…
Following this thread, I would actually disagree here. It’s not that zero data is the only acceptable way, it’s rather that turning on data collection by default is unacceptable as it seems.
I currently have the kde telemetry enabled (just the basic system information) for my disposable VMs which I use for development, my home server and my laptop. The moment KDE rolls out there new proposal with opt out telemetry, this telemetry will be turned of for good. If the telemetry on Manjaro is opt in, I will handle it the same way. And quite a few people I know usually handle these things in a similar fashion. Very few of them are strictly against any type of telemetry, but very strictly against opt out and/or unprompted telemetry.
Again… principle.
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I’m not disagreeing with this - though I would like to know the proportion of installations which end up with telemetry enabled, it just often seems that most folks deem it invasive and don’t bother to enable it…
It’s also possible that I’m being deafened by the loud voices of the masses objecting. It could be that the silent majority would simply turn it on.
So the next question might be - how do you evaluate those statistics when people who deny such telemetry also cannot be counted without some form of telemetry 
it just often seems that most folks deem it invasive and don’t bother to enable it…
I really hope that Manjaro can mitigate that by being very clear and open about the extend of the data collection (just like they are now). As I said previously. You can get prompted data collection to work well as the steam survey shows.I can’t say if it’s just how Valve asks or if people “just” trust Valve in general… kinda hard to say…
It’s also possible that I’m being deafened by the loud voices of the masses objecting. It could be that the silent majority would simply turn it on.
Let’s hope so. But I think that a lot of people also simply aren’t aware or are to lazy tbh. Maybe you can get them on board with some form of “goodie”. Eh, generally hard to say.
Let me see, hmm…
Yes, you might need some form of telemetry to best calculate that.
Something like:
Do you want Manjaro to support your [enter hardware here]?
That’s a definite “goodie”, in my humble opinion.
That’s a definite “goodie”, in my humble opinion
Nope, I don’t exactly see it working that way. If an OS does not support my hardware, I don’t use it in the first place and thus my hardware will not show up in telemetry anyway.
Making the developers’ life easier by helping them figuring out what the users hardware is, is not a goodie for the user and will probably not be perceived as such.
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This seems easy to me:
- Calculate a very short(!) hash of a UUID (for example only 15 bits so that it cannot be calculated back)
- Add a bit for “telemetry is active/inactive”
- Integrate this into the “ping” already used (yes, every ping contains a certain part of the data, even if it is usually empty)
- Fill a database with the values received daily (only 16-bit value, and day of the month (without saving the IP))
The ratio of devices with/without telemetry then can be calculated at any time.
-
The number is never exact, only representative (but that should be enough)
-
Data older than 30 days should be deleted (It is enough to save the ratio of telemetry bits switched on and off for each day (4 bytes per day
)
In order to be transparent and to meet the wishes / concerns of all users, the ping should become “opt-out” on this occasion.
Taking into account the data from the real telemetry, this can allow a fairly accurate estimate of the user base without everyone having to give up data.
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Enabling developers to prioritise support for hardware based on statistics of the types of hardware being used is a positive step toward satisfying user need.
Useful telemetry empowers all concerned with building an OS to focus their attention on code and features, and making decisions to maximise benefit for Users.
You are of course welcome to disagree with these comments also, though it would no doubt be quite an asinine stance.
I find it difficult to argue with that kind of logic. 
Granted, its rare to find hardware that is totally unsupported, but chipsets of newly-released mainboards (as an example) can often not work as expected OOTB.
For some hardware to just work in Linux it can take much time and effort on the part of developers. Maintainers of any Linux OS need to prioritise work to be done somehow. I can’t imagine that’s an easy feat without at least knowing hardware specifications and OS specific information they might be coding for.
Some manage better than others, likely due to having access to telemetry in some shape or form. I (for one) am open to helping make things easier for developers and other contributors and to encourage their continued support. The community can’t help but benefit from that somewhere down the line.
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You (and others) should open your eyes and stop kidding yourselves. How exactly will telemetry make Manjaro do (improve) anything in regards to, to be honest, anything? Will they improve KDE Plasma? Will they contribute to <insert-random-package> upstream? Seriously, open your eyes. With Plasma it at least makes sense to collect telemetry, because you know devs will actually do something. But what will Manjaro do? Clone archinstall probably. Great job. You don’t need telemetry to clone projects and sed some lines.
If Arch dies tomorrow, that’s the exact time Manjaro dies as well. You can see it happen with ARM already.
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Welcome to the forum! 
I would recommend you do the same, then.
As has already been explained a few times here on the thread, and as should be clear to everyone who has ever looked at our main website in the past decade, Manjaro has partnerships with hardware vendors for selling devices with Manjaro preinstalled, and not only that, but these devices are also made more affordable to existing Manjaro users by way of special discounts.
Likewise, Manjaro is also partnered with proprietary software companies, which not only yields similar discounts to Manjaro users on end-user licenses for that software, but also provides the Manjaro community with a channel for user feedback and feature requests directed at these software companies.
In order to secure continued support from and sustained relationships with these independent companies, Manjaro needs to be able to prove its viability in the market. And that is where the telemetry comes in.
It would therefore behoove all of the plaintiffs here to put the grey matter in their skulls to use and look at something other than how to knee-jerk in paranoia. 
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Enabling developers to prioritise support for hardware based on statistics of the types of hardware being used is a positive step toward satisfying user need.
Yes…But that’s not a goodie for the user and 98.5% of the users won’t care. (obviously exaggerated) I don’t argue that telemetry is helping with development. But the hard truth is that a lot your users don’t care about that. A lot of my users at work don’t even send crash reports unless prompted, even if they ask for support ^^
You are of course welcome to disagree with these comments also, though it would no doubt be quite an asinine stance.
I want to point out that I never doubted the usefulness of telemetry over this entire thread. But as I said. Most users don’t care if telemetry helps you as a developer. (I don’t say, that they are actively against anything. I mean that literally they don’t care for it)
I can only repeat myself here. “It helps the developer to do xyz” is not a goodie for your user. No matter if they benefit or not.
I (for one) am open to helping make things easier for developers and other contributors and to encourage their continued support.
Sure. As I said. I am open to such things too, as long as developers implement this stuff in a way I agree with. (Honouring consent etc.)
I think that is an incredibly shortsighted view.
When I built my most recent computer, I opted to install Manjaro on it. I didn’t have to pay anything for it; it was free because a group of talented developers took open source software and packaged it up into a distribution that works very well. It seems pretty lame to me that people who are using a free product are unwilling to contribute anonymous telemetry data that absolutely will help make a better distribution. If you plan to continue using Manjaro as a rolling release, then it seems you would want device management, package management, monitoring, and other distribution software to continually improve.
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I’m wondering how much respect users have for the developers of these products, when they simply refuse to trust those developers, who are completely open about what is being collected, and give users a choice about the collection of that data.
I get that some, a lot of, people have come to Linux from very abuse Systems. But the whole point of Open Source has been Trust but verify. The information needed to verify is in the open nature of the code.
Well the developers who are asking for that data, are supplying all the information necessary to verify the Trust that they are asking for.
Interestingly the majority of people who say they don’t trust telemetry even given the open sharing of what data is to be collected, have never in their lives read a line of Source code, and install the Free software Binaries, without once verifying it.
Who are they placing their trust in?
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I think that is an incredibly shortsighted view.
Doesn’t matter. I can’t change the world for you and make users care if xyz makes this stuff easier. I mean, you are trying to convince me of what exactly? I already said that I acknowledge the usefulness of telemetry.
This does not change the fact that the average user does not care if collecting data makes developers’ lives easier. If this was a enough of an incentive, then we wouldn’t have the conversation on how to make telemetry more viable.
If you plan to continue using Manjaro as a rolling release, then it seems you would want device management, package management, monitoring, and other distribution software to continually improve.
I hate to break it to you, but most users will expect that anyway without the willingness to provide anything.
And before you try to go on and convince me. I don’t say that this is desirable or ok. As I already said. As long as these things are implemented in a way I agree on, personally I am willing to help out as I see the benefit. But that only goes for myself.
If you want to get more participation for your telemetry, you will have to figure out how Valve succeeded with it or give your users some incentive to opt into it.
I’m wondering how much respect users have for the developers …
The same as for most other things on the internet. Probably very little.
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Yes then trust, your users to participate in large numbers because it is important.
You don’t do it yourself, instead you are harping on about opt-out because too few people would participate with opt-in.
If you want to reap trust, you must first sow trust and believe in the support of your users.
Sorry, but then it needs to be communicated better so that it gets through to the last user.
“Manjaro Dev needs your support”, please everyone participate, the more the better, then we can better achieve the following goals for Manjaro future:
- …
- …
- …
You can follow the development of our goals here … transparently and openly.
We trust in your support, thank you community
We believe in you.
That is purely speculative, and perhaps your personal assumption, how do you know that? Sure, there may be something to it, but it is not verifiable.
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I don’t have a problem with messaging like that, and I doubt the developers do either. In fact, something like that is probably in the works.
The issues we have here is that some people have taken the stance that Telemetry is unacceptable, regardless of how it is managed, or how it is messaged. what interests me at this point is, if they don’t trust the Developers with some open Telemetry, why do they Trust the Developers with the entire Operating System. Same Developers.
…and by the way the consensus is for Opt-In.
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I find this kind of funny, that a few active users here in this forum talking about developer improvement with the help of this telemetry.
At the end of the day, its all about financially deals with other companys and thats it (all about money and nothing else).
So it is exactly what you said right now and that is a honest answer that i respect (and was missing in the first MDD Topic from our Manjaro dev Team). But it is the opposite standpoint to use this Telemetry to improve a OS and get rid of errors, which is just naive… which a few user’s (not you) believe.
Just to make this clear, when anyone don’t care about this (may) harmless telemetry it should be fine.
I don’t mind to send this harmless Telemetry to Manjaro, but only manually with a Yes/No button, if i agree to enable it after a fresh install (and no means no data… not the shady way as ubuntu does it), i don’t mind to share my Telemetry Data with Valve Hardware survey also.
To have a Telemetry service running in background from your OS (and not manually executed program like Steam), is a complete other story.
Specially when it wants to call home (unasked), as @romangg firstly recommend in the other MDD Topic.
I dont see how this conversation could help anyone if you downplay it with knee-jerk paranoia.
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Do they ? Imho they don’t ! They lost the faith in manjaro and left in strong numbers in the past !
How many times manjaro released a buggy release, then it was fixed not by manjaro but by people like here in the forum just to recognize that the same fails get back with the next release ! You don’t care at manjaro for it, throwing the users under the bus and are wondering ? and now you claim to fix the quality-fails with some telemetry ? you must be joking. Where are you to fix problems if you’re needed (for example here at the forum) ? No there’s silence in the bliss. The only answer is “to read the arch-wiki”. yes cause the manjaro-wiki is so poorish that most actual problems don’t get answered in the manjaro-wiki nor here. i give a $hit to your telemetry, if you want to improve manjaro then start here at the forum and get interactive with the problems the users are asking for. And to be clear, several times the kde-telemetry was an argument for telemetry. but there is a big difference between the manjaro-devs and the kde-devs. if you ask for problems or inventions at the kde-forum then the kde-devs take care for it and interact. manjaro-devs doesn’t ! that’s one of the main reason why a lot of users have left manjaro and there is no “telemetry-data” that will solve this problem. do the math.
Not really, unpaid Volunteers can do only so much.
These are Manjaro’s current commercial partners, meaning they support Manjaro financially. They keep Manjaro Financially viable, so that the Manjaro Developers can afford to be paid, and devote full time to the project, and make the product better.
Very simply more Partners providing financial support is better than fewer. But that is not the only reason for the Telemetry, the data itself provides insight into what issues need to be dealt with.
One example that comes to mind is my partners 2 in 1 Starlite, I have discovered there is an issue with Wayland (that would be KWayland) and the newer kernels, that may or may not be an issue after the new update, but Telemetry gives the Manjaro Developers a chance to get a head of the game, and ensure that KDE and or Starlabs can deal with the issue.
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Why you don’t Donor money then to Manjaro like the other’s (me included) instead pointing only to the anonymous Telemetry?
How exactly will this Telemetry: “absolutely will help make a better distribution”? (Besides money)
And this can’t be solved with a manually error report from a forum member? I don’t think so
Wayland problem looks more like a problem which is related to KDE, where Manjaro can’t do much against it or did i miss here something?