How did any decent software ever get created without telemetry? </sarcasm>
Oh, FFS! Sigh. Telemetry data might be NICE to have for software developers, but it sure as heck is not essential, else there'd never have been any good software developed pre-internet.
As a less-than-averagely-knowledgeable-on-IT-stuff El Reg denizen, if a new version of Audacity suddenly came up with a dialogue saying something like "We'd like to collect some telemetry to help us spot bugs; would you like to install the telemetry add-on?" I might have been OK with it,depending on the mood it caught me in. But to me, opt-in checkboxes imply that the telemetry software is there anyway, just not switched on - or that's what is claimed, anyway. And I don't want telemetry thank you very much. I am willing to send an email or enter a form o a website if I come across a bug, but that's fully under my control as to whether I do so or not.
MY computer, MY decision over what goes on in it, and who it talks to! Insofar as my limited ability to understand and do something about these issues goes, anyway. And frankly, the stuff that I don't understand/can't do anything about should be illegal, worldwide.
Does the company I buy bread from need to know every time I consume a slice of their bread and in what manner I consume it, i order to make a decent loaf of bread? No! Does Linus need to know what I'm doing with Linux in order to improve Linux? No! So I don't see why Audaciity should need something that an entire bloody operating system which is FAR more complex doesn't need, in order to improve. Yes, I know I'm technically naieve compared to a lot of folk here, but Ialso know that I have friends who are even less technically ept think much the same way. Grrrr..
Set lawn = "my computer"
Set getoffof = "stay out of"
Print "Oy! ";getoffof; lawn; " world!"
(with apologies if my hazy memory of PC1211 BASIC is inaccurate. I've slept a few times since then)
Sigh. Aaaaand.. deep breath, thoughts of flutterbys and bunnies in sun-soaked meadows lest I blow a gasket. Gotta be careful of the old blood pressure these days...