Canonical Begins Tracking Ubuntu Installations 548
suraj.sun passes along this excerpt from Phoronix:
"Just uploaded to the Ubuntu Lucid repository for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (and we imagine it will appear shortly in Maverick too for Ubuntu 10.10) is a new package called canonical-census, which marks its initial release. Curious about what this package provides, we did some digging and found it's for tracking Ubuntu installations by sending an 'I am alive' ping to Canonical on a daily basis. When the canonical-census package is installed, the program is to be added to the daily Cron jobs to be executed so that each day it will report to Canonical over HTTP the number of times this system previously sent to Canonical (this counter is stored locally and with it running on a daily basis it's thereby indicating how many days the Ubuntu installation has been active), the Ubuntu distributor channel, the product name as acquired by the system's DMI information, and which Ubuntu release is being used. That's all that canonical-census does, at least for now. Previously there haven't been such Ubuntu tracking measures attempted by Canonical."
Phone home? (Score:5, Insightful)
FUD? (Score:1, Insightful)
Statistics, statistics, statistics (Score:1, Insightful)
Could lead to useful statistics. Dunno why this is being made into such a big deal. Even though it sounds very much like MS Windows phoning home, both have two different objectives. Nothing to see here. Move on.
and the IP address... (Score:2, Insightful)
...thus giving a convenient database of computer availability and movement.
The good news for those concerned about privacy is that it appears for now Canonical is just interested in tracking the users of OEM installations -- those PCs that ship with Ubuntu by default such as from ZaReason, System76, and Dell.
I'm sorry, what? Why is this good news? This sentence makes as much sense as, "The good news for those interested in peaceful action is that the sniper is only interested in targetting the Dutch."
For those not wanting to participate in this anonymous data gathering process, they could always sudo apt-get remove canonical-census.
Yeah, you can always opt-out of spam too.
If Microsoft did this... (Score:2, Insightful)
...I wonder what the reaction would be on this site?
NTP (Score:3, Insightful)
I thought that was the reason for the NTP server.
Phone Home was so 1983 (Score:2, Insightful)
I know!
Through a security flaw, MS discovers the Canonical DB, thus earning a unit count of "enemies"!
The entire point of Linux is the philosophy. There's other choices for the "Just-Works" proprietary synergies.
Is Canonical getting to that "power corrupts" stage?
Re:Dear god I hope this stops the impending wave (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Phone home? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Phone home? (Score:5, Insightful)
no, you could do less.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah. It probably is something they can bargain with. Namely, it can be used to counter the claim that the people buying the machines are just wiping them to put pirated windows on.
Re:Phone home? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's about time (Score:2, Insightful)
They should send the usage statistics to the mailing addresses of all the big name game developers so we can finally get rid of Windows.
They'll look at the numbers and think "hm, just as low as I thought" and then continue to develop exclusively for windows.
It's no worse than Update Manager (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)
> They'll look at the numbers and think "hm, just as low as I thought"...
Regardless of what the numbers actually are.
WINE compatibility (Score:4, Insightful)
While Linux native code would be nice, just getting popular games working properly
in WINE on linux would be a great start. If you knew say you could add
2 to 3 million potential customers with compatiblity code tweaks...that would be worth it to
many companies.
World of Warcraft and EVE online are two games that have great WINE compatiblity,
and there are sufficient linux users for both that they have their own forums
on the gamemakers sites.
Re:Test Your Bias! (Score:2, Insightful)
What does Windows Genuine Advantage do in this regard? Doesn't it periodically contact Microsoft?
And AFAIK you are not able to opt out. If you do not comply, it is my understanding that your computer will cease to operate.
Re:Phone home? (Score:4, Insightful)
Your definition of easy differs from my mom's. ;-)
Re:Phone home? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Phone home? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Phone home? (Score:4, Insightful)
Canonical could have done a better disclosure job.
It hasn't happened yet, so it's tough to assess whether they "could have done" a better disclosure job until, you know, there is a need for disclosure.
They've put a package in the repos that you have to go out and install (if it's even on all the mirrors yet). If you go and install it yourself, then obviously it's been disclosed to you, and you want to stand up and be counted. If you don't want to be counted (or you are unaware that the package exists), you won't be installing it and you don't need to be informed of anything.
Once they start putting this on OEM installs, or in the default distro, then we can talk about how much disclosure was done, and whether they "should have done" more.
We aren't there yet. I don't know what Canonical intends for a communication before, or even if, they ever decide to make this a default install. Maybe it'll be an option on the installer or a first-run question on OEM installs. Maybe it'll be disabled by default and they'll mention it on the distro home page and ask you to enable it. Or maybe they'll sneak it in and turn it on and they'll then be subject to a valid and reasonable accusation of insufficient disclosure.
But that's all stuff that hasn't happened yet. Let's wait until it does, and keep an eye on Canonical and this package, so we're ready for our nerdragegasm when one is appropriate.
Re:Phone home? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up!
I can't believe how many people are already jumping to conclusions and deciding that Canonical is as evil as Microsoft. Come on, people!
When it comes with the default installation and is enabled automatically without any input from the user, then it would be fair to trash Canonical for invading the privacy of its users. For now, they haven't actually done anything, and frankly I get tired of the reactionary nonsense hurled by Linux users on stories like these.
I find it very difficult to get worked up about a counter that pings a remote server once a day just to count up how many active installations there are and how long they've been running. Some "privacy invasion." As long as Canonical is up front about what the package does and they do not enable it without your permission I don't see a problem here.
Re:From the article (Score:3, Insightful)
> Just saying before the shit hits the fan.
Too late for that. It's always too late for that on Slashdot. There are monkeys here who crap in their hands and throw it at the fan.
Game developers should develop for a profit (Score:3, Insightful)
That applies in everything. Looking at CrossOver [codeweavers.com] money is being made now with Linux and OSX. If CodeWeavers can make money with CrossOver then software vendors should be able to make money creating cross platform software too.
On the other hand, game developers would have a semi-solid set of numbers to go by, so they can assess the size of their potential market. As it is, there really aren't good numbers on Linux adoption
Even with this there still will not be good numbers. First, Canonical is only including the tracking software on OEM installations but I bet most installations are done by users or local gurus. It is not mandatory either. Then there are other Linux distros.
Falcon