Gonna come out with a controvertial take here, but I am actually fine with anonymised usage stats/telemetry if they are solely designed to improve the product, and as long as there is an opt-out. Many people are get furious about telemetry in firefox or distros, but when i ask what their precise issue is with it, can give no answer.
Sending these stats is also a contribution to the projects that help improve software.
How is this corporate shilling? Telemetry isn’t inherently bad and can be very useful to projects, it’s only when it goes against the users wishes or collects excessive amounts of data that it becomes bad.
Have you been keeping up with the story? Few people are saying there is absolutely zero value in telemetry as a concept. Most people have an issue with it being on by default. For a FOSS community, especially one who tries to act as if privacy matters, the very nature of the concept “telemetry that’s on by default” is the problem. I wouldn’t personally use the phrase corporate shilling because I think it’s not the most precise descriptor of the situation, but it’s not entirely innacurate either. I think all of their talk about “it’s anonymized” or “it’s not excessive” or what have you is just distraction: the real issue is that it’s on by default.
