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)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Phone home? (Score:5, Insightful)
no, you could do less.
Re:Phone home? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Phone home? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Phone home? (Score:4, Insightful)
Your definition of easy differs from my mom's. ;-)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
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: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, Canonical could have done a better disclosure job. Never the less, once you know one of the several ways of turning it off, I don't believe its a problem. Editing the crontab is probably one of the easiest things to do on a unix-like system.
Turning it off? Its not installed by default. I just made sure it my Ubuntu 10.04 was updated and then checked up the canonical-census was installed. Its not, in fact I have to go out of my way to 1) know it exists and then 2) install it on my own through the Synaptic Package Manager (I couldn't find it with a quick look in the Ubuntu Software Center). Most basic users won't install it since they tend to avoid the package manager, and even when you do find it in the package manager it has this as it's descr
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It's about time (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Also send them to hardware companies that seemingly sabotage any attempt to write Linux drivers.
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: (Score:3, Interesting)
I always find it funny when people set a number, "If you knew say you could add
2 to 3 million potential customers"
Some say, based on web site hits to non-geek sites, that linux is .5% of the hits so it is a small % of the total computer market. So lets take a quick look at that .5%
As of 2004 there were an estimated 223,810,000 Personal computers. Note, these are not servers these are Personal computers for home use.
So what is .5% of that you may ask?? (Came from a site that was a financial site geared towar
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.
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 includ
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Debian Popularity Context [debian.org] already provides some of the same kinds of statistics. They ask at installation time whether you want to participate, and I think the interface is evenly weighted between opt-in and opt-out, so the users may be somewhat self-selected.
Calm down! It's OEM only. (Score:2, Informative)
For a second , I really thought Canonical lost their minds... However further reading indicates this is only an OEM measure. That is, providers such as HP,DELL,ACER,etc... will engage with Canonical to provide usage data. What provoked my knee-jerk comment above was what would be so contriving to try and count the actual number of individual new download->installs on any given platform/OS release; we'd all be writing scripts to steer it in a different direction. Yeah, kinda like US Elections.
**hick**
OEM only (Score:5, Informative)
The summary (conveniently?) left out the part where it says that this package is only included on OEM installations, not normal installs.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ubuntu already had popularity-content in place (Score:4, Informative)
The popularity-content package in Debian and Ubuntu already existed, and collected information on the amount of submitters and the packages installed.
See http://popcon.ubuntu.com/ for the summary of that collected information. So the claim that there has not been such tracking measures in place earlier is not quite true.
Not a problem... (Score:5, Funny)
... just don't compile it with "--enable-become-skynet" and you'll be fine.
This doesn't sit well (Score:2)
Not sure I like this even if "That's all that canonical-census does"
I think removing this on install is going to be my plan there.
Opt out (Score:2)
So long as it's documented and optional i don't see why anyone should have a problem with this... The install process should explain this, give the option to turn it off, and display to the user the exact information that would be sent.
Counting length of install seems quite useful, especially if they could determine why someone deleted their install after a short time...
Also it could be useful to take a hardware inventory, to determine what hardware people are using - this might also correlate with short in
Popularity Contest (Score:2)
I thought this was already done to some degree with the popularity contest [ubuntu.com].
They already had NTP and package updates (Score:2)
I'm surprised they needed this given that Ubuntu already contacts the Ubuntu Network Time Protocol server and the security updates server regularly. Though I suppose both might have been redirected to local servers in some cases.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Which means: this must be the start of the year of Linux on desktop. What else ubuntu-census can be but the seed of the future bloatware to grow strong under the close care of OEM-s, neh?
(peace brother, I'm not a fan boy in any gang, just kidding).
Good on them (Score:2)
I just hope they make it clear to the users what's going on - not that it's a big deal, but it would be the right thing to do. Otherwise I'm just interested in seeing some statistics myself.
way to bait... (Score:3, Informative)
Of note to your interests. something that was skillfully left out of this slashdot article but is mentioned many times over and over in the original article. its only installed on OEM installations. the ones that are customized by canonical for use by oems. its not enabled/installed on your ubuntu install if you just download ubuntu or upgrade. geez...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
O... mentioned many times over and over in the original article. its only installed on OEM installations. the ones that are customized by canonical for use by oems. its not enabled/installed on your ubuntu install if you just download ubuntu or upgrade. geez...
The article *doesn't* mention over and over. It *speculates* - once - that this is for OEMs. It can't be enabled or disabled on any Ubuntu download as the package is only 14 hours old.
Rational Response (Score:2)
Why? (Score:2)
Why would they do this? It has to be something they can sell or bargain with. So does this mean they'll try to lower the price they pay to Dell for preinstalling Ubuntu (if, in fact, they're actually paying for this). Or are they planning to create an adware-version of Ubuntu?
Neither seems very likely, so ... why?
M.
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.
Comments (Score:2)
Not installed by default (Score:2)
This isn't installed by default. Right now, it's not very different than Debian's popularity-contest package, which sends every week a list of your installed packages.
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.
Test Your Bias! (Score:5, Interesting)
Test your Free Software bias! If this article had the following summary, would you react differently?
It's no worse than Update Manager (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My reaction to your reaction would be: why doesn't Ubuntu Update already do this?
Each program on a *n?x system is supposed to do one thing and do it well [wikipedia.org]. If it's just as easy to do this in a separate, purpose-built package instead of inside APT, then why do it in APT?
why not if its optional (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll let it run at least initially, I am curious as to how many people run ubuntu and where (to at least the country level). If ordinary users can access that information I will be happy enough to run it on my systems.
If that access isn't available then I won't.
I am surprised it took so long! (Score:2)
From a marketing perspective, Linux has the problem that no one really knows how widely it is used. The number of downloads does not help. This is a first attempt at solving the problem.
I applaud Canonical for the courage in carrying this through, given that the privacy freaks are going to, well, freak.
No such Ubuntu tracking measures (Score:2)
Little Sensationalist? (Score:2)
So a new package just shows up that tracks installs and this instantly means it's a forced install.
Doesn't sound too different from Debian's popularity-contest package (which has cron as a recommended install).
And is there anything in a conf file to direct the reporting elsewhere? Maybe to schools, large businesses, etc
Finally.... (Score:2)
... this could give some better numbers as to how many Linux systems are actually out there. As long as this package isn't installed automatically without prompting, this is great and very useful.
Why is this news? (Score:5, Informative)
Debian has a similar usage tracking package: http://popcon.debian.org/ [debian.org] .
As long as such a package is only installed with the users consent, I don't see the problem.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Debian has a similar usage tracking package: http://popcon.debian.org/ [debian.org] .
Not quite. That's for tracking the popularity of individual packages, not the distro as a whole. (It's available for Ubuntu too, as it is for most Debian-derived distros.)
Furthermore, it's not installed by default, (apparently) unlike the software that the article is about.
Trusting the client, eh? (Score:2)
If Microsoft did this... (Score:2, Insightful)
...I wonder what the reaction would be on this site?
Sounds interesting. (Score:2)
As long as they protect the users' privacy, this could end up being very interesting. As the users opt into sending more detailed information, such as CPU, video card, and memory, they can collect demographics information useful for answering questions like whether CPU/GPU intensive programs should be included in the default installation. Other information, such as whether the computer is a desktop/laptop could also be used.
NTP (Score:3, Insightful)
I thought that was the reason for the NTP server.
prefer privacy? (Score:2)
the last line of tfa:
For those not wanting to participate in this anonymous data gathering process, they could always sudo apt-get remove canonical-census.
Help! They're on to me. (Score:3, Funny)
At least.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Hyperbole much? (Score:3, Informative)
That's all that canonical-census does, at least for now. Previously there haven't been such Ubuntu tracking measures attempted by Canonical.
First of all, this was announced public ally months ago. And it was posted to the front page of Slashdot no less.
Second, the package is totally optional, and during the install there is a very clear option to not install it.
I am getting sick of every story summary on here trying to be twisted into some giant conspiracy...
They should have used popcorn (Score:2)
http://popcon.debian.org/ [debian.org]
The Debian package popularity-contest does this along with the added benefit of reporting what packages you use.
You have to opt into it, though.
So? (Score:2)
Who cares.
Okay, okay. There are TECHNICALLY some privacy concerns, but the package is fully open source. If you're the kind of person who cares about tiny little things like what servers your computer is pinging to, then you're almost certainly technically savvy enough to open up the package source and find out what exactly what the package is doing.
Canonical is not going to become the next Facebook, tracking your movements constantly and keeping them forever (by and large). That's not saying I trust them u
Re: (Score:2)
doesn't bother me (Score:2)
Interesting (Score:2)
I'm fine with this (Score:2)
I can imagine some people making a fuss over this tracking system, but I'm totally happy with it and if I wasn't it wouldn't be difficult to stop.
Who cares? (Score:2)
Seriously, who cares. It's a fully open source package on a fully open source operating system. If you don't like the package, don't install it... or modify it so it only returns the information you want.
And anyway. It's just a ping. Seriously. It's not a serious threat and if you're the kind of person that cares about simply pinging a server once a day, you can easily firewall it off or just cut out the package.
Canonical is not Facebook. They aren't evil. They don't have the Evil package installed in Synap
But... why? (Score:2)
Since ubuntu checks for updates isn't it enough to track the connection to the apt repositories to get a fairly good approximation of ubuntu usage?
Or, why not setting up a popularity contest [debian.org] as debian does and get some more already anonymized usage statistics from that?
I don't like this development, like I didn't like axing gimp while getting tomboy + mono in, and moving the default window buttons around. The System is fighting back, marketing guys take over.
The good thing of FOSS is that if canonical screw
Debian popularity-contest? (Score:2)
Why not use debian package "popularity-contest"?
Initially released "Sat, 24 Oct 1998 22:33:58 -0400", and it does a heck of a lot more.
http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/p/popularity-contest/current/changelog [debian.org]
Popularity Contest (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Mandatory tracking? (Score:2)
Because people are just going to LOVE being tracked like this.
Also, first non-tracked post.
/.ers collide from 3 directions (Score:2)
Today, in an unprecedented clusterfuck, /. itself was brought to it's knees when every user posted simultaneously. The majority of the posts fell into the following range :
1) "It's Ubuntu - it rocks, it's cool, we'll finally now how many people are using it continuously!" These are the people that use Ubuntu, don't understand anything about it, and have never been in a server room in their lives. They also wouldn't understand privacy issues if said issues fell on them from any height.
2) "Does anyone
Popularity contest? (Score:2)
Just like it says in the package description... (Score:2)
...which you can see before you install it?
From the source package web page [launchpad.net], opening the 0.1 release, we see:
What did you think it might have done?
Seriously, this is a story? What's next, "ZOMG, popcon [debian.org]!"?
Previously... (Score:2)
Previously there haven't been such Ubuntu tracking measures attempted by Canonical.
...If you ignore the landscape service, and the popularity contest, which have done similar things.
Previously... (Score:2)
Previously there haven't been such Ubuntu tracking measures attempted by Canonical.
...If you ignore the landscape service and the popularity contest, which have done similar things.
Re: (Score:2)
apt-get (Score:2)
One more for the list:
apt-get purge empathy evolution gwibber ubuntu-shitty-games ubuntuone-client rhythm-ghettoblaster canonical-census
Well ... (Score:2)
Would've been nice to be asked beforehand. ...
But as long as the package can be removed or the hosts simply blocked
Popularity contest? (Score:2)
It is what it is (Score:2)
Package Fronkensteen (Score:2)
To complete the system, there's a mirror package at Canonical that to each
"I am alive" ping, logs a message of "It's alive! IT'S ALIIIIIVE!!!".
.
OMG (Score:2)
Don't do it! (Score:2)
It's all a scam...those damn liberals are going to use the Canonical Census information to take away your access to the software repository! They're also going to post pictures of your desktop so less creative people can copy it! Think of that...less creative people copping your style. Tell the bastards NO! Damn the census!
Popularity contest? (Score:2)
Easily fixed... (Score:2)
Since I have to deal with Ubuntu servers:
cat > /etc/apt/preferences
Package: canonical-census
Pin: release a=fakerepo
Pin-Priority: 1001
HERE
Ah, if only would they make statistics public... (Score:2)
Too bad they will never do it... For very obvious reasons.
Opt-in (Score:2)
Seems like this is opt-in only for now. So no cause for alarm yet. As long as it remains opt-in for 10.10 I'm quite happy for them to do it. This at least has the potential to give us some meaningful statistics to show developers to port their stuff over.
That's not a very good method of tracking usage... (Score:2)
That's not a very good method of tracking usage - not everybody leaves their PC on 24/7, so the cronjob may not always run - and using the number of cronjob runs as a counter for how long the system has been active isn't a great idea either. Storing the install date and sending that would be a better indication.
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?
The solution for NOT installing certain packages (Score:5, Informative)
To make sure that no other packages like eg base-files suddenly start adding these kind of packages you might want to add to /etc/apt/preferences or prolly better a file like /etc/apt/preferences.d/dontwant something like:
This will block two annoying packages that don't belong on most servers.
avahi, because you don't need to announce everywhere when your server is located somewhere in a DC (indeed it might be handy in a local network, but it stops being useful when you don't have multicast routing and/or have a routed network)
canonical-census, because Ubuntu does not need to know what your server is doing.
Of course other packages can be blocked in a similar way from being auto-added by apt. (unfortunately a dpkg 'hold' does not work).
Another way is to make a fake empty package, then the depends are satisfied, in the above case you might have packages which refuse to install because the package can't be found. Do make sure with 'apt-cache policy' to see if you don't have other apt-prefs at a prio of 1001 (or higher if that is possible) otherwise they might still get there.
I am also wondering when Ubuntu/Redhat and other such commercial "Linux" companies start being nice to all the people who actually do the hard work and start acknowledging that those people are what they are selling/supporting/consulting on and earning money with.
I'm torn (Score:4, Interesting)
Is this a good thing for creating verifiable stats on the number of users, or a bad thing because of the "phone home" behaviour.
At least it's not doing this secretly...
This is not exactly true (Score:3, Informative)
I was part of a group of people who were working on the Ubuntu tracker that tracked packages installed, and one that reported the hardware the installation detected. Both of those tools could easily signal active installations just by seeing the updates from the package installer while the second probably would only report on new hardware. While this new package does something different, I'm not convinced that it actually serves a purpose to the end users. I'm no longer part of those discussions anymore, but this only seems to serve the makers of Ubuntu to see if their efforts are being used.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Dear god I hope this stops the impending wave (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Whoa there! Someone is getting ahead of themselves here! Reread what you typed and then reread it again. Ubuntu is still Free Software and for no charge, for the most part, and you can remove it if you don't want it.
Re: (Score:2)
You should really use aptitude instead of apt-get, especially for installs. It's better at tracking down the vestigial requisites when removing things (if, that is, it was used to install them in the first place)
Re:Nae bother. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (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.