Smolt: firsboot revisited

[Simo Sorce]

On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 01:03 -0500, seth vidal wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 06:58 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 00:34 -0500, seth vidal wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 05:48 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > > > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 10:59 -0600, Mike McGrath wrote:
> > > > > So smolt is still setup in firstboot and still is opt in.  My question 
> > > > > is do we want to install smolt as part of a default configuration with 
> > > > > F7.  My vote is yes.
> > > > 
> > > > My vote is no.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > > * is legally questionable.
> > > 
> > > If you have a concern here, please file a bug on it and I will make sure
> > > it gets passed into the legal queue for evaluation.
> > 
> > Everything that needed to be said had been communicated to Mr. McGrath.
> > It's up to him to decide on what to do with it.
> > 
> > >  Please list the
> > > country where you think the law might be violated.
> > Probably most parts of the world outside of the US, definitely in
> > Europe, definitely in Germany, probably also in some part of Asia. 
> > 
> > Besides this, you should understand that data-privacy plays a much more
> > important role than what you are used to in many countries and
> > communities - As I already said: You are playing with a loaded gun,
> > right in front of your face.
> > 
> > Here in Germany, many folks consider any such transition from user to
> > vendor as "hostile espionage". Press is full of articles flaming
> > manufactures for this and related topics. 
> > 
> > It will definitely be reason for users not to choose Fedora in future
> > (It might have escaped you, but Microsoft and other vendors having done
> > the similar is the reason why many users choose to switch to Linux).
> 
> No need for such a screed. I wasn't arguing with you. I was simply
> volunteering to take the issues through the board to legal to get them
> addressed. I'll talk to Mike and make sure I have a firm handle on your
> concerns so I can make sure they are represented.

This is as much, or more, a PR issue, not just a legal issue.
In Italy we have one of the most restrictive privacy laws as well, and I
can confirm Ralf point of view.
If you want to send user data to a vendor, you better make it very clear
to the user what data is transmitted and make it very optional (ie. ask
for confirmation and offer to disable the tool at the first run).

Simo.

-- 
Simo Sorce <ssorce at redhat.com>
Sr Software Engineer
Base Operating Systems
Red Hat Inc.