wonderwhy-er
Telemetry
Plan was to add config value for that, we just released unified configuration tool, will add ability to turn it off in one of next releases.
:ack: , I made a fork to use it without telemetry , will keep an eye for it and kill the fork when the ability to turn it off is released , thanks :)
@regismesquita, can you share why you want to disable telemetry? It helps us identify issues more quickly and improve the product. We're not collecting any personal information.
Because of things like this: https://github.com/wonderwhy-er/DesktopCommanderMCP/pull/86
@jonrichards thanks for bringing this change of license to my attention appreciate it.
Because of things like this: #86
Can you elaborate? I can only guess you mean the partial license change. We decided to postpone that as we are not sure what path forward to choose for the project. Unrelated to your comment. But we would like to learn more about your concerns?
@wonderwhy-er there's a few things that I see as problematic here, but I would encourage you to do some research for yourself on why consumers want easy opt-out for all data collection, anonymous or otherwise, and why laws have been moving this direction for years now. The fact that you've stated you are working on providing an opt-out option shows me you have some understanding of this, however. But in the interest of good faith, here are some things that I see as an issue:
- A user's data is theirs, and they should have the option to decide whether or not they want to share it.
- You have no stated data retention policy, who has access to the data, or how it is protected.
- You're sending data to a company who has a proven track record for violating user privacy, and tracking users around safeguards meant to prevent that capability. The claim of anonymous data doesn't really negate this problem.
- The license change shows, at minimum, at least the thought for creating a pathway to monetize DesktopCommanderMCP. That moves things to now being able to make money off of user data, without the ability for them to easily prevent that.
I think the project is cool, and I hope it (and you) continue to have success. I understand that you take pride in your work (you should!) and that you want to improve the project - which benefits everyone who uses it. However, I reject the idea that giving users control over their data is mutually exclusive to that goal. One thing it does do, is result in people like myself choosing not to use it.
About disabling telemetry, I am planning a live stream on Tuesday when I want to go over issues and add missing things to new configuration system. Telemetry is one of those things I will be adding that allows to disable it.
Thanks a lot for the thoughtful feedback @jonrichards Just to add some transparency from our side:
From the beginning, we planned to add an easy way to disable telemetry — the work on it was happening in parallel with building a new configuration system for Desktop Commander, now its in place and I plan to add telemetry opt out to configuration this week.
Our goal was always to make telemetry opt-out easily available once the new config system was ready. You bring up a good point about retention policy. Will need to do that as well as GDPR part too.
That said, we're building this project in our free time, and it’s a constant juggle of priorities — which is also why we’ve started thinking more about how to make it sustainable, currently its not sustainable for us to be honest.
Thanks again for valuable feedback! We are trying to make it better.
BTW I am bit weird, I do not hold pride in anything. I find pride in anything to be a bad character trait for myself. I find it blinding and arrogant(of course its not always is). So I prefer not to spend time on that mode/emotion. Waste of time in my personality setup :D
Can you make it opt-in? I really need it to never call home, not even for installing.
To be honest I was quite surprised when I found the telemetry, I always inspect all of my MCP servers before installing and yours is the very first one that has any sort of telemetry or calling home.
Well, most MCPs are API wrappers. You are being tracked there anyways to some extent. Ours is local.
And we can't really make it opt in. We would loose 90% of information that helps us proritise where project goes. Not in free version at least.
We need some data to better understand where to steer the project. Like right now we know that big issue is failures of edit block that we are trying to fix. That does not come up in feedback.
We also have way more users than thoae who reach out. So we are spending a lot of time now to try to learn about our users in various ways.
May be you are willing to jump on a call with us? Would love explore your situation better.
You can book here https://calendly.com/eduards-ruzga
We just released a version with opt out and privacy policy. We also switched from machine id that identifies the machine to random uid.
We see couple of more ways to improve privacy in that sense. In reality we do not care and do not want to connect any information with end users. But we do need to track active users.
Its one of indicators that product is doing okey or not after releases.
I will close that issue for now.
We are thinking about opt in variant as separate installer for those who really need it.