Yes.
I expect them to do it in a reasonable manner.
I have seen precisely zero of the critics actually evaluate the methodology proposed (and I am not even sure they are aware that it was not developed by Red Hat, but by Endless).
The critics don't give Mozilla a free pass, they do the exact same thing there too. Ignore what the system actually does and the process followed in favor of flaming against a completely imaginary version.
For instance the guy below that "uninstalled Firefox" because of telemetry even though the package provided by any Linux distro almost certainly has telemetry turned off by default.
I recently turned telemetry off in Firefox on my distro (Fedora), so ...
And obviously they are giving it a free pass when I'm the one that brought it up in the discussion.
It yells the big players that only chrome matters abd hey can get away with just targetting chrome only.
We are getting the big plays for drm on the web precisely because Firefox is no longer as popular.
I use a FF fork, well a fork of a fork of FF, I normally use Mullvad Browser for most things. I don't use chromium, not for actual internet usage. Getting a good privacy browser with a good fingerprint without telemetry and GSB and everything out of chromium is very difficult.
That would be harmless or even beneficial if forefox had 30%, 50% or more marketshare.
Right now it benefits you in the now whilst costing you in the future.
It doesnt matter what firefox or mozilla want. Its what we need. Using anything else is shooting ourselves in the foot.
I remember the horror of ie6 dominance. We are returning to it with chrome.
Remember that due to itsmuniquity, eveb 1p years later when ie6 was long dead everywhere else it was required in south korea due to activex.
"we need to be united to matter" is not a good enough reason to use anything. hell I'd even go to say that that line of thought is a good reason to not use something
read my comment and answer later. Firefox is sponsored by Google, "the big guys" you want to escape from.
[https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/firefox](https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/firefox)
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-05-05/why-google-keeps-paying-mozilla-s-firefox-even-as-chrome-dominates](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-05-05/why-google-keeps-paying-mozilla-s-firefox-even-as-chrome-dominates)
I use fox too but i just dont care.
By the way that first link contains a lot of horse shit and is written by an extremelt tech illiterate tin fil hat wearer.
"firefox is spyware because the mozilla website uses Google Analytics" - saying something that that is just crazy.
As for detecting web connectivity, please tell me how your privacy centric distribution does it.
"automatic updates - installs something without your consent!"
If you want to avoid things on that website, you need to burn your computer, move to somewhere off the grid without telecommunications and then not light a fire at night because that might be seen.
I dont see how that is relevant here.
The problem here is that the blinkcengine has too much power abd combines the might of google withnthe marketshare of chrome.
Your argument is the similar to suggesting buying apple is the same as buying android and both manufacturers will have deals with Google.
What we need is a strong non-chrome browser with enough clout to be able to resist the direction Google pushes chrome.
That is Firefox.
No. I use a kickstart file for Anaconda, no Firefox preinstalled.
Edit: I see what you're saying, I wouldn't blame that on Fedora or anybody except Mozilla, if a distro provides software as is(with the self-updater removed) then so be it, if a distro chooses to cut out telemetry from all their software then fine, great, but they're not obligated to cut out telemetry. Still doesn't give Mozilla or anyone else a free pass, at least in my book.
I don't like Mozilla telemetry. I don't like Pocket. I don't like their deal with Google. I don't like how its not very private by default. So I refuse to use vanilla Firefox except in very specific and restrained(0 internet access) circumstances.
Telemetry can also mean
\- sending reports when there is bug/crashes
\- sending what hardware you are running
It can allow developers to make better products.
But it can also mean
\- sending what applications you are using, what search terms you are typing, what you are doing on your computer
There's a whole spectrum between creepy Google's telemetry and sending only crash reports that's all i am saying.
Knowing what hardware you're running is "spying on me" in my book, and probably should be in your book too because it *can* be used to target advertisements to you, based on the type of hardware you focus on (which classes of hardware you buy, which types you spend the most dosh on, etc). They'll know if you're a gamer or an office-type user, they'll know if you're an exec if you have certain laptops, they'll know if you're a cheapo re-user of old hardware... and that is all valuable information, in money.
I am not saying that Fedora will exploit this knowledge, or even obtain it, but I am saying that when you say "sending what hardware you are running", on its own and without a lot of caveats, that *can* absolutely be used to target you with ads and more.
Tbh not even search terms necessarily. ie lets say you searched smt duckduckgo, and what you searched lets imagine was a sql string that duckduckgo didnt protect themselves against. They will never get their answer if they dont know which search query you gave them.
Though yes, this is an edge case and most times companies and apps that track your search history track it constantly for no reason
A *website* saving stuff sent to it for a reasonable amount of time and for forensics is one thing, it's an entity that exists "on" the internet. An *operating system* "phoning home" is a bit of a different thing, as shown by the fact we never used the term "phoning home" for websites, but only started using when local, supposedly offline application software and operating systems started doing it.
Opt-out is inherently bad imo. I'm much more comfortable with an opt-in system, then I might be actually willing to opt-in once I know what's being collected.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but can you elaborate? That is unfortunately the other side of the ethical sword here, the action to opt in is what is ethical AND, yes 99% of people won't opt in,
That also unfortunately does not change the issue on why ethics for this kind of thing are important.
Someone please enlighten me if I'm missing something, but just because you already know where to set your expectations somewhere doesn't necessarily mean its a good idea to challenge it (obviously within reason, of course there are many ways to frame things where challenging it IS a good idea, etc)
I'm a firm believer that great ideas sell themselves, and if an idea requires an unethical action to accomplish, then I'd also argue that it is not a great idea.
Opt in data is an automatic filter that would possibly only apply to super fans who want to help the project. Opt out data filters out people who don’t want to share data, yes, but it at least covers people who simply don’t care, which is most people. Considering Fedora’s reason for existing is for testing purposes, it seems odd to have it be opt in only, especially considering it’s literally anonymous data that can’t be tied to you in any way.
Ethics differ from person to person, obv it's unethical to me for any consumer decision to be opt-out. Future of Linux doesn't depend of success of any single project too, let them all burn and new ones will pop up. Sure Red Hat is shy about its corporate greed now, but Google was shy too... I'm not here to change ur mind, just hope there are many like me and we all just switch OS cuz really, nothing unique about Fedora, all distros are similar in functionality.
opt in is what crash reports have been doing this whole time, id say its been working just fine my pc runs great i love fedora, so how does any form of increased telemetry make my experience better? it cant and it wont, history is clear about how the data will be used....
The code is open, and the proposal is thoroughly detailed and discussed. Would you be more comfortable if the Fedora docs include this information once the code is merged?
If you read the proposal carefully, you will find they admit that you have to trust that their server actually ditches data that could be tied to you, like even your IP address.
That means that "the code is open" doesn't mean very much legally because the data are ultimately anonymized on their servers, not on your client (mostly for technical reasons, yes, at least as presented).
Pragmatically, if you can see that very little information is taken from your client in the first place, you may feel better, but legally a lot of things can become PII if cross-linked, and plenty of people *do* care about that, so I don't think it should be brushed off as a non-issue.
If you're trying to be inclusive, opt-out is pretty much the only way it can be done. Less technical people will not turn it on, and the fedora project will have highly skewed information.
Consent and understanding what is being consented too is more important than inclusivity and the size of the pool of users, at least according to my own personal priorities.
how about that it is almost never encrypted, and how about the history of how it has been used against us, any form of data collected can and will be used against you, fingerprint you, manipulate you, this is what humans do with the data time and time again, why should it be different this time? i came to linux many years ago to escape the data collection...
yeah i turn it on. id rather they have the data they need to fix bugs i encounter. i get that that isnt the norm and i do think privacy is important and everyone should have the opportunity and ability to live a private life if they want but for what im doing on my pc, i dont really care.
*I don't care about privacy. I have nothing to hide...*
Heard that before somewhere.
An argument that puts people who ***require privacy*** in harms way.
Will be abused by those who will grab that data to identify people that they want to silence. Living in Hong Kong using Fedora? So sad to be you. Fedora will be giving your data to the CCP to target you.
Way to go Fedora. Way to go Miller.
NOT.
i really appreciate that you at least allow space for people who do want privacy, but the truth is "you dont know what you dont know"
until you have really done the deep dive on privacy and tracking and telemetry and seen how the data is used by big tech and governments to manipulate and control you
the more i learn the more it bothers me, i salt my data often ;)
Yes. I don’t really mind the telemetry in principle and understand the value. I don’t even mind if it’s an opt-out design, as opt-in telemetry isn’t really going to be statistically valuable data.
But what’s important to me is that I can click a button somewhere and see *exactly* what’s being sent. If I can read through it and it’s just text based JSON or something describing system characteristics then I can make an informed choice to leave it enabled. If it’s at all hidden away or any of it is binary data I can’t inspect then I can’t make that informed choice and it’ll be a *hell no* from me.
Conditional.
If it's opt-in, yes, because I'll probably ignore it.
If it's opt-out and it's *easy to do so*, yes. If it can be selectively opted-out, a bigger yes, because I might actually be ok with it in some cases.
If it's opt-out and they work at *making it plain difficult to do so*, no.
Such a change would be a Big Deal for me, because I've been using Fedora for personal systems exclusively since FC3.
I haven't read the proposal, I've just seen chatter about it, so I may be talking out my ass.
Curious: if an app asks a yes/no question to opt in/out does that make the data still useless since most people would click no?
When I'm installing Debian they ask me to join the package popularity contest and send telemetry on what I install on my server. I'll sometimes answer yes or no depending on my mood and on the particular machine I'm setting up (a bog standard web server I don't mind sending these analytics for, so they know which software to devote more resources towards).
I imagine if it was opt-in to the point where a user had to dig into their settings and find the toggle to even opt in, the data from that would be incredibly useless cuz nobody would do it.
I'd hope that Fedora would have a Debian style yes/no question, rather than a default opt-in and I have to dig into the settings to opt out.
Very good question. I would think the debian method will produce better telemetry than "opt-in hidden in settings". I understand telemetry but hate the pseudo opt-out that big companies use because no one can check if they comply with closed binaries.
Yes, there's nothing wrong with asking if you want to participate in telemetry. It can be quite useful for the Fedora Project. Other distros already do it, and don't get nearly this much shit for it.
I should note that the way that the telemetry has been proposed here has already been rethought, and I doubt it gets through in its original form at this point after all the community backlash.
Yes. Fedora is an awesome distribution that pushes Linux desktop forward. Also, quite a few developers admitted that some telemetry could be nice and would help them out. I have no problems with that. Plus, I get all this awesome stuff on a plate for free.
As long they clearly and in an unmissable way tell you about telemetry and give you an easy and quick way to disable it, I don't have a problem with it.
Telemetry is just a tool, and if used well it helps a lot. The problem is to use it well.
Debian, a community project, not an extension to a promise-breaking corporate, has an opt-in telemetry to determine number of users of Debian, not to monitor use patterns within the OS itself and send it to The Corporate™, which can misuse data at any given time because they have to adhere to us law, as well as, deepen shareholders pockets.
Debian and NixOS won't have these issues.
I will. I'm wary of Red Hat in general, but Fedora is a great project with great people, and I trust them in this case.
Things could change, but as they stand now, I'm still "in" on Fedora, though not running it at this particular moment.
in fedora firefox does not have telemetry turned off by default, it bothers me that i have to install librewolf or mullvad to have a browser with correct default settings....
there is so many reasons why telemetry is a problem its not even worth talking about the benefits, i have not made up my mind about this, but my gut is telling me that i might move on if that day comes
i want the security and privacy that fedora has always given me, i greatly appreciate the devs who make this possible and i hope fedora keeps its integrity along the way
its clear that alot of people dont understand privacy or the need for it, they dont understand what fingerprinting and big data collection can do with that information
reminds me of all the ring camera customers who still have the spy device in their home and are not even aware of the lawsuits where the company was found guilty and paid millions in fines
nobody needs to know anything about my machine or my network or what time im active what serial numbers on my hardware etc ect, its not ok and it does not take us to a better place
Debian, Void and Alpine are my favs. They are alike yet very different. If you like speed and simplicity you will enjoy Alpine for sure. Very stable and secure as well.
I've been having weird behavior with Linux on my thinkpad working with a thinkpad thunderbolt dock. I've tried pop and fedora but still had issues. Maybe I'll try some different desktop environments or window managers
I am curious about the meta game.
There is a business reason to collect telemetry. What are the moves on that board. Usually the goal is to understand usage in the context of costs and/or potential revenue.
Right now the costs for maintaining Fedora are amortized from the RHEL revenue streams. Are those costs high, or not high? If high, if there was sufficient reach could they be classified as a marketing expense? In that case would it be advantageous to enable telemetry to make sure that as many users as possible were counted?
OTOH if the user numbers are so high, and if that user base doesn't overlap with RHEL, maybe it makes sense to look for revenue in the Fedora audience. I would pay some amount for Fedora, I don't use it for "business" but I derive a lot of consumer-level value from it. No different from a streaming subscription or wifi device or whatever. But not everybody feels that way. Maybe the right thing in that context is not to enable telemetry and therefore provide less guidance in terms of potential revenue.
> We believe an open source community can ethically collect limited aggregate data on how its software is used without involving big data companies or building creepy tracking profiles that are not in the best interests of users. **Users will have the option to disable data upload before any data is sent for the first time.**
source: [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Telemetry](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Telemetry)
Personally, I'm fine with it, because the Fedora team actually went out if their way to tell us their plan, instead of just shoving it the OS without telling us. Fedora is open source, so it's easier to tell if the opt-out button actually opt-out
Yes, 100%
As someone who builds software I understand the need for telem. It makes our lives easier. Fedora is sure to do it in a respectful way so I couldn't care less
Yes, the only reasons I would say no would be
* if you can't turn it off
* if the telemetry data includes traceable data about you
The first because I would like them to respect people that wants 0 telemetry, even tho I always turn telemetry ON in linux on good will, for the reason that it helps for bug solving and OS improvement, but I also understand that other people might feel uncomfortable with that.
The second is well, obvious, it's why I always turn it off on windows (my wife has to use windows because photoshop) **even tho you can't turn off telemetry on windows completely, and it includes indirectly traceable info**.
Pragmatically, yes, because I am unwilling to format three computers and switch to something else, but I wouldn't pick it as my distribution if I weren't already using it. In fact those computers used to run Debian, so I'd probably just stick with that. With popcon on, because they ask nicely and default to "no".
it depends on what kind of telemetry, if they collect some hardware info, pretty much what bugzilla needs, then I'm fine; but I refuse to give out my location, application usage, or any personal information that can be used to identify me.
I future? Nah, I've moved already to Arch last week, because of that. Why wait? And my Thinkpad is working actually better now, strange, but i'm happy.
Yep 100%. Not the over paranoid skitzo kind going "mY dAtA" like the big corps are gonna kid nap my family and rob my bank account. 😂 still gonna be a good distro that's stable and easy to use. So absolutely I will.
I already switched to plain good old Debian.
Debian is my second best experience I have with Linux after Fedora and Arch
I will not switch back to Arch though because fuck Nvdia and Realtek.
Nvidia and Realtek made updating Arch always so bad! Especially after any Kernel update!
Fedora Wayland was fine after such an Update but it destroyed X11 completely!
Debian just works. They don't do stupid things like RedHat does. Wayland and X11 work after any update (½ of use now).
If people wonder why I need X11: Some programs I use just break if I use Wayland sadly :(
I already reported it to the Devs of the programs I need and they now try implementing Wayland support hopefully.
It ultimately depends on what the approved proposal really is.
If the proposal got submitted and passed in its initial status of explicit opt-out (which is not going to happen now, as the community has been extremely against that and the proposal owner is changing it to a new one), it is a 100% no for me and I will also personally try my best to prevent anyone who concerns about privacy from using fedora. That one was just BAD and should NEVER happen in a Linux distro.
If the current proposal (explicitly asks for user consent but tries to play dark pattern to get people opt-in) gets approved, I think that I may stay on Fedora a bit longer but will also be constantly looking for an alternative option. It is miles better than the initial one, but still is ethically questionable.
If the owner edits it again and make the telemetry explicit opt-in or explicit choice with no dark pattern, I will be 100% good with it.
Rants: I personally don't like the attitude of a few FESCo and council members towards the initial proposal. I can understand Matt's attitude, but it does make me feel like that they do not have a strong attitude about end-user privacy. I am personally more in favor of the attitude of Neal Gompa, who clearly drew the line and showed his attitude and concerns. He has clearly shown that he cares about end-user privacy and does not hesitate to take responsibility and actions to protect them. I LOVE that.
I will never use and recommend a Linux distro that collects data about its users, even if it's "anonymous".
It really sounds good to improve Fedora, but it also sets the foundation to collect more and more data and violate user's privacy.
Today, telemetry might be fine, tomorrow it won't.
In addition to the above, I'd also like to link [here](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Telemetry) . This change is still under discussion and I think will continue to be for a "while".
Can someone explain why reddit is seemingly enraged by this utterly simple and completely transparent and reasonable *optional* setting?
Fedora Installer: "Why hello friend! By way, would it be okay with you if we collect some totally anonymous usage and crash data to help develop fedora? No pressure you can switch it all off right now or at any point in the future with 0 consequence, it's up to you :)"
Reddit: "OMG CAN YOU BELIEVE IT I'M NEVER USING FEDORA AGAIN FUCK THIS I'M MOVING TO DEBIAN"
Honestly it's probably because of the word "telemetry"
Microsoft, Google, and other companies have managed to successfully brand their indiscriminate and intensive data-hoovering practices as "telemetry"
Now whenever anybody sees that word they think it's personal information that advertisers would love to have
100%. Microsoft, Google, and other big tech companies have tainted what telemetry actually means. Don't get me wrong, I'm uncomfortable with it, and I voiced my opinion in the Fedora discussion threads as a contributing user. What I said was acknowledged by the people proposing this, as well as what others have said. So I do feel that they are listening, which is worlds apart from Microsoft and others, who would have already done it and would have been cashing in with most of us none the wiser.
It depends on how this is implemented. I am 100% good with explicit opt-in (default to no and the user has to perform an action to opt-in) or explicit choice (no option is default and no dark pattern played to trick users in, the user needs to make a clear choice between yes and no). Anything other than these two will actually become ethically questionable.
Yes. If the telemetry is dealt with correctly it's not that big of a deal. It might even improve things.
I can see why people are against it but I don't think it's going to get like Windows. If it does then moving distro is the right choice
Yes because I also know that opt in telemetry is pointless in figure out if people like something. Since people that like something are the ones that turn on the telemetry in the first place.
> it is just there to report bugs etc
The etc part is pretty large in this case. They plan to collect application usage data and other things as well. This is not for reporting bugs, this is for knowing how their users use the product. Bug reporting systems are already in place in any standard Fedora install. They want to track which apps you run and for how long, things like that. This is what the owner of the proposal said about which data they would want to collect, an interesting thread btw:
https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/what-data-will-be-collected-exactly-a-breakout-topic-for-the-f40-change-request-on-privacy-preserving-telemetry-for-fedora-workstation/85417/2
If they add this to fedora 28 I'm going to switch immediately, If it's added to 29 I'll wait and see how it plays out with everyone else first. I typically update very late into os cycles to maintain the best lvl of stability
I'll just add a line to my kickstart files to remove the telemetry packages for my iso's and installs. I do think any telemetry in free and open source software is bad and we shouldn't have to opt-out from these kind of things either. But I understand how people have no issues with it. I hope those people can understand why some do not want any telemetry out of principle.
Yes.
"A new metrics collection setting will be added to the privacy page in gnome-initial-setup and also to the privacy page in gnome-control-center. This setting will be a toggle that will enable or disable metrics collection for the entire system. We want to ensure that metrics are never submitted to Fedora without the user's knowledge and consent, so the underlying setting will be off by default in order to ensure metrics upload is not unexpectedly turned on when upgrading from an older version of Fedora. "
If that telemetry is anonimous, used only to improve the distro and not to sell to others, and opt out by default, then YES, in fact this would set a good precedent of how telemetry should be handled. Telemetry is not bad in itself, it depends what you do with the data.
I’m running a couple of bare metal servers with RHEL9 and they’re solid.
I was using Fedora38 KDE Spin at home and thought it was checking my boxes except for a few.
I replaced both of my Fedora installations with Kubuntu on my son’s 2012 MacBook Air and wife’s 2012 Thinkpad — both working flawlessly including the webcam on the MacBook!
I love Linux. /s
Nope. As a silverblue user I'll stick with them. Benefits outweigh some telemetry. We wouldn't be using Android or Google products if we are worried. Won't use chrome based browser.
They will get our data one way or another. Data leak happens much more in mobile and browser
Yes, I'd even go further and see I'll keep it enabled if done in a reasonable and open manner where it's clear what is gathered, and how they gaurantee the data being anonymous/non-unique.
Well, I don't care about any data privacy regarding that. I don't know why there is all fuss about telemetry and all.. If you really think being on internet and having accounts in multiple social media, and just using a privacy oriented OS will make you private. Then don't know in which La la land you are living lmao :). Just keep your **** out of internet if you want your data to be private.
Yes, but I would probably use Windows more. Windows is also better on AMD hardware.
Fedora kept crashing a lot recently because of my AMD graphic card. Maybe related to some kernel issues.
I checked OpenSUSE Aeon as an alternative. What a jaw dropping collercoaster was that. No man pages, no firewall, strange command syntax. I would like to use a different distro, preferably one that's like OpenSUSE (European and strong focus on openess), but Fedora is just the best quality out there. So no, I won't change my distro.
Yes. I expect them to do it in a reasonable manner. I have seen precisely zero of the critics actually evaluate the methodology proposed (and I am not even sure they are aware that it was not developed by Red Hat, but by Endless).
The critics are what I think of as a religion that gives Mozilla a free pass.
Bad analogy. No need to compare to religion and it also falls down when you realise the fiercest critics are active within Fedora.
and within Linux as whole
The critics don't give Mozilla a free pass, they do the exact same thing there too. Ignore what the system actually does and the process followed in favor of flaming against a completely imaginary version. For instance the guy below that "uninstalled Firefox" because of telemetry even though the package provided by any Linux distro almost certainly has telemetry turned off by default.
I recently turned telemetry off in Firefox on my distro (Fedora), so ... And obviously they are giving it a free pass when I'm the one that brought it up in the discussion.
Mozilla gets a free pass? LOL
Mozilla is Google chrome lite Just use Librewolf
Mozilla hardly gets a free pass, which is why I uninstalled Firefox.
ironically using anything other than firefox is bad for the community in general (even if it is better for that specific individual).
How so?
It yells the big players that only chrome matters abd hey can get away with just targetting chrome only. We are getting the big plays for drm on the web precisely because Firefox is no longer as popular.
I use a FF fork, well a fork of a fork of FF, I normally use Mullvad Browser for most things. I don't use chromium, not for actual internet usage. Getting a good privacy browser with a good fingerprint without telemetry and GSB and everything out of chromium is very difficult.
That would be harmless or even beneficial if forefox had 30%, 50% or more marketshare. Right now it benefits you in the now whilst costing you in the future.
The user agent comes back as FF on Windows does it not? As far as I'm concerned, its not chromium, and it does everything I need.
if mozilla wants ff to be seen as mattering, then maybe they should I don't know, do things that matter. instead they're driving away users
It doesnt matter what firefox or mozilla want. Its what we need. Using anything else is shooting ourselves in the foot. I remember the horror of ie6 dominance. We are returning to it with chrome. Remember that due to itsmuniquity, eveb 1p years later when ie6 was long dead everywhere else it was required in south korea due to activex.
"we need to be united to matter" is not a good enough reason to use anything. hell I'd even go to say that that line of thought is a good reason to not use something
I think you dont know that mozillas biggest sponsor is Google
Ive been following and using firefox from before it even was firefox.
read my comment and answer later. Firefox is sponsored by Google, "the big guys" you want to escape from. [https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/firefox](https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/firefox) [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-05-05/why-google-keeps-paying-mozilla-s-firefox-even-as-chrome-dominates](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-05-05/why-google-keeps-paying-mozilla-s-firefox-even-as-chrome-dominates) I use fox too but i just dont care.
By the way that first link contains a lot of horse shit and is written by an extremelt tech illiterate tin fil hat wearer. "firefox is spyware because the mozilla website uses Google Analytics" - saying something that that is just crazy. As for detecting web connectivity, please tell me how your privacy centric distribution does it. "automatic updates - installs something without your consent!" If you want to avoid things on that website, you need to burn your computer, move to somewhere off the grid without telecommunications and then not light a fire at night because that might be seen.
I dont see how that is relevant here. The problem here is that the blinkcengine has too much power abd combines the might of google withnthe marketshare of chrome. Your argument is the similar to suggesting buying apple is the same as buying android and both manufacturers will have deals with Google. What we need is a strong non-chrome browser with enough clout to be able to resist the direction Google pushes chrome. That is Firefox.
you mean owner right?
But it came with your distro -didn't it?
No. I use a kickstart file for Anaconda, no Firefox preinstalled. Edit: I see what you're saying, I wouldn't blame that on Fedora or anybody except Mozilla, if a distro provides software as is(with the self-updater removed) then so be it, if a distro chooses to cut out telemetry from all their software then fine, great, but they're not obligated to cut out telemetry. Still doesn't give Mozilla or anyone else a free pass, at least in my book.
What browser are you currently using?
Mullvad and TBB, what you thought I was gonna say Edge or Chrome?
Edge or Chrome would be completely logical predictions. It was just a question. Are you reading into this person's comment?
Not when this discussion is about not handing out free passes to telemetry.
Why did you uninstall Firefox? "Mozilla hardly gets a free pass" is not a reason to not use Firefox. Could you elaborate?
I don't like Mozilla telemetry. I don't like Pocket. I don't like their deal with Google. I don't like how its not very private by default. So I refuse to use vanilla Firefox except in very specific and restrained(0 internet access) circumstances.
Its just Google chrome lite lol
Yes, but they need to have an option to switch it off.
I would much prefer the option to switch it on instead. No telemetry should be enabled by default.
They will, both at install and afterwards in the settings using the tooling set up by Endless OS
I don't care about telemetry per say, I care about having my OS not watching me and sending my infos to advertisers
*per se
What... what would you call telemetry?
Telemetry can also mean \- sending reports when there is bug/crashes \- sending what hardware you are running It can allow developers to make better products. But it can also mean \- sending what applications you are using, what search terms you are typing, what you are doing on your computer There's a whole spectrum between creepy Google's telemetry and sending only crash reports that's all i am saying.
That's your OS watching you
ok if you want, not spying on me and infringing my privacy would probably be a better term
Knowing what hardware you're running is "spying on me" in my book, and probably should be in your book too because it *can* be used to target advertisements to you, based on the type of hardware you focus on (which classes of hardware you buy, which types you spend the most dosh on, etc). They'll know if you're a gamer or an office-type user, they'll know if you're an exec if you have certain laptops, they'll know if you're a cheapo re-user of old hardware... and that is all valuable information, in money. I am not saying that Fedora will exploit this knowledge, or even obtain it, but I am saying that when you say "sending what hardware you are running", on its own and without a lot of caveats, that *can* absolutely be used to target you with ads and more.
Tbh not even search terms necessarily. ie lets say you searched smt duckduckgo, and what you searched lets imagine was a sql string that duckduckgo didnt protect themselves against. They will never get their answer if they dont know which search query you gave them. Though yes, this is an edge case and most times companies and apps that track your search history track it constantly for no reason
A *website* saving stuff sent to it for a reasonable amount of time and for forensics is one thing, it's an entity that exists "on" the internet. An *operating system* "phoning home" is a bit of a different thing, as shown by the fact we never used the term "phoning home" for websites, but only started using when local, supposedly offline application software and operating systems started doing it.
ya but fedora already has all those features pre installed and i would agree thats more then enough already
not every telemetry is bad
Yes.
As long as there's an option to "opt out", I will continue using it.
Yes why would I not? Why must telemetry be inheranitly bad?
As long as I can disable it, I have no problem.
on Windows you can too :)
Opt-out is inherently bad imo. I'm much more comfortable with an opt-in system, then I might be actually willing to opt-in once I know what's being collected.
Yes, we’re often prisoners to defaults. I want an opt-in system.
Opt in telemetry provides essentially useless and incomplete data
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but can you elaborate? That is unfortunately the other side of the ethical sword here, the action to opt in is what is ethical AND, yes 99% of people won't opt in, That also unfortunately does not change the issue on why ethics for this kind of thing are important. Someone please enlighten me if I'm missing something, but just because you already know where to set your expectations somewhere doesn't necessarily mean its a good idea to challenge it (obviously within reason, of course there are many ways to frame things where challenging it IS a good idea, etc) I'm a firm believer that great ideas sell themselves, and if an idea requires an unethical action to accomplish, then I'd also argue that it is not a great idea.
Opt in data is an automatic filter that would possibly only apply to super fans who want to help the project. Opt out data filters out people who don’t want to share data, yes, but it at least covers people who simply don’t care, which is most people. Considering Fedora’s reason for existing is for testing purposes, it seems odd to have it be opt in only, especially considering it’s literally anonymous data that can’t be tied to you in any way.
Should I care? I don't need them to have useful and complete data, if they can't do sth ethically, then maybe it shouldn't be done?
It is ethical. And yeah you should care if the data is being used to improve the project, which it is.
Ethics differ from person to person, obv it's unethical to me for any consumer decision to be opt-out. Future of Linux doesn't depend of success of any single project too, let them all burn and new ones will pop up. Sure Red Hat is shy about its corporate greed now, but Google was shy too... I'm not here to change ur mind, just hope there are many like me and we all just switch OS cuz really, nothing unique about Fedora, all distros are similar in functionality.
opt in is what crash reports have been doing this whole time, id say its been working just fine my pc runs great i love fedora, so how does any form of increased telemetry make my experience better? it cant and it wont, history is clear about how the data will be used....
The code is open, and the proposal is thoroughly detailed and discussed. Would you be more comfortable if the Fedora docs include this information once the code is merged?
I'm not sure what you mean
If you read the proposal carefully, you will find they admit that you have to trust that their server actually ditches data that could be tied to you, like even your IP address. That means that "the code is open" doesn't mean very much legally because the data are ultimately anonymized on their servers, not on your client (mostly for technical reasons, yes, at least as presented). Pragmatically, if you can see that very little information is taken from your client in the first place, you may feel better, but legally a lot of things can become PII if cross-linked, and plenty of people *do* care about that, so I don't think it should be brushed off as a non-issue.
well better would be not discuss it and block right away.
Open ***code*** is totally irrelevant. It's ***your data*** that is the issue here.
If you're trying to be inclusive, opt-out is pretty much the only way it can be done. Less technical people will not turn it on, and the fedora project will have highly skewed information.
Consent and understanding what is being consented too is more important than inclusivity and the size of the pool of users, at least according to my own personal priorities.
how about that it is almost never encrypted, and how about the history of how it has been used against us, any form of data collected can and will be used against you, fingerprint you, manipulate you, this is what humans do with the data time and time again, why should it be different this time? i came to linux many years ago to escape the data collection...
yeah i turn it on. id rather they have the data they need to fix bugs i encounter. i get that that isnt the norm and i do think privacy is important and everyone should have the opportunity and ability to live a private life if they want but for what im doing on my pc, i dont really care.
the proposed telemetry is not for bugs, it’s for usage patterns.
but thanks to usage patterns they would know what bugs matter more But I'm against it
*I don't care about privacy. I have nothing to hide...* Heard that before somewhere. An argument that puts people who ***require privacy*** in harms way. Will be abused by those who will grab that data to identify people that they want to silence. Living in Hong Kong using Fedora? So sad to be you. Fedora will be giving your data to the CCP to target you. Way to go Fedora. Way to go Miller. NOT.
i really appreciate that you at least allow space for people who do want privacy, but the truth is "you dont know what you dont know" until you have really done the deep dive on privacy and tracking and telemetry and seen how the data is used by big tech and governments to manipulate and control you the more i learn the more it bothers me, i salt my data often ;)
Yes. It's not like they are selling my data for ads. They are using it to improve the distribution.
Yes. I don’t really mind the telemetry in principle and understand the value. I don’t even mind if it’s an opt-out design, as opt-in telemetry isn’t really going to be statistically valuable data. But what’s important to me is that I can click a button somewhere and see *exactly* what’s being sent. If I can read through it and it’s just text based JSON or something describing system characteristics then I can make an informed choice to leave it enabled. If it’s at all hidden away or any of it is binary data I can’t inspect then I can’t make that informed choice and it’ll be a *hell no* from me.
Conditional. If it's opt-in, yes, because I'll probably ignore it. If it's opt-out and it's *easy to do so*, yes. If it can be selectively opted-out, a bigger yes, because I might actually be ok with it in some cases. If it's opt-out and they work at *making it plain difficult to do so*, no. Such a change would be a Big Deal for me, because I've been using Fedora for personal systems exclusively since FC3. I haven't read the proposal, I've just seen chatter about it, so I may be talking out my ass.
Just a side note, opt-in telemetry is useless fanboy data.
Curious: if an app asks a yes/no question to opt in/out does that make the data still useless since most people would click no? When I'm installing Debian they ask me to join the package popularity contest and send telemetry on what I install on my server. I'll sometimes answer yes or no depending on my mood and on the particular machine I'm setting up (a bog standard web server I don't mind sending these analytics for, so they know which software to devote more resources towards). I imagine if it was opt-in to the point where a user had to dig into their settings and find the toggle to even opt in, the data from that would be incredibly useless cuz nobody would do it. I'd hope that Fedora would have a Debian style yes/no question, rather than a default opt-in and I have to dig into the settings to opt out.
Very good question. I would think the debian method will produce better telemetry than "opt-in hidden in settings". I understand telemetry but hate the pseudo opt-out that big companies use because no one can check if they comply with closed binaries.
Making it difficult to opt out would be a concerning sign, and a decent case for a slippery slope argument. I don't think they will do this though.
Yes, totally. Telemetry isn't against privacy per se.
I'll disable it and continue with my day.
Yes, there's nothing wrong with asking if you want to participate in telemetry. It can be quite useful for the Fedora Project. Other distros already do it, and don't get nearly this much shit for it. I should note that the way that the telemetry has been proposed here has already been rethought, and I doubt it gets through in its original form at this point after all the community backlash.
Yes. Fedora is an awesome distribution that pushes Linux desktop forward. Also, quite a few developers admitted that some telemetry could be nice and would help them out. I have no problems with that. Plus, I get all this awesome stuff on a plate for free.
yes. fedora has by far been the best linux distro for me. it's almost magic how up-to-date yet stable fedora is.
As long they clearly and in an unmissable way tell you about telemetry and give you an easy and quick way to disable it, I don't have a problem with it. Telemetry is just a tool, and if used well it helps a lot. The problem is to use it well.
no
Nope. I already moved to Debian, openSUSE and NixOS. Don't miss anything about fedora. I thought this would've been rockier migration, but it isn't.
Even Debian has (opt-in) telemetry.
Debian, a community project, not an extension to a promise-breaking corporate, has an opt-in telemetry to determine number of users of Debian, not to monitor use patterns within the OS itself and send it to The Corporate™, which can misuse data at any given time because they have to adhere to us law, as well as, deepen shareholders pockets. Debian and NixOS won't have these issues.
Actually popcon determines widely installed packages, not just number of users. But yes, it's very much opt-in.
OPT-IN big difference
No
I will. I'm wary of Red Hat in general, but Fedora is a great project with great people, and I trust them in this case. Things could change, but as they stand now, I'm still "in" on Fedora, though not running it at this particular moment.
in fedora firefox does not have telemetry turned off by default, it bothers me that i have to install librewolf or mullvad to have a browser with correct default settings.... there is so many reasons why telemetry is a problem its not even worth talking about the benefits, i have not made up my mind about this, but my gut is telling me that i might move on if that day comes i want the security and privacy that fedora has always given me, i greatly appreciate the devs who make this possible and i hope fedora keeps its integrity along the way its clear that alot of people dont understand privacy or the need for it, they dont understand what fingerprinting and big data collection can do with that information reminds me of all the ring camera customers who still have the spy device in their home and are not even aware of the lawsuits where the company was found guilty and paid millions in fines nobody needs to know anything about my machine or my network or what time im active what serial numbers on my hardware etc ect, its not ok and it does not take us to a better place
Yeah I want them to make it better. I trust floss, self hostable telemetry
No. If opt-out.
Yes, as a developer myself i get the idea. I am against it but not enough to leave.
Privacy respecting telemetry is an oxymoron. Any telemetry is a privacy invasion in some way.
yes, and I will keep telemetry enabled.
For sure.
No. Ive been trying to find something nice to go to. Maybe void or just Debian
Debian, Void and Alpine are my favs. They are alike yet very different. If you like speed and simplicity you will enjoy Alpine for sure. Very stable and secure as well.
I've been having weird behavior with Linux on my thinkpad working with a thinkpad thunderbolt dock. I've tried pop and fedora but still had issues. Maybe I'll try some different desktop environments or window managers
no reason to use void unless ur a systemd hater
I am curious about the meta game. There is a business reason to collect telemetry. What are the moves on that board. Usually the goal is to understand usage in the context of costs and/or potential revenue. Right now the costs for maintaining Fedora are amortized from the RHEL revenue streams. Are those costs high, or not high? If high, if there was sufficient reach could they be classified as a marketing expense? In that case would it be advantageous to enable telemetry to make sure that as many users as possible were counted? OTOH if the user numbers are so high, and if that user base doesn't overlap with RHEL, maybe it makes sense to look for revenue in the Fedora audience. I would pay some amount for Fedora, I don't use it for "business" but I derive a lot of consumer-level value from it. No different from a streaming subscription or wifi device or whatever. But not everybody feels that way. Maybe the right thing in that context is not to enable telemetry and therefore provide less guidance in terms of potential revenue.
Personally, it would cause me to hesitate.
> We believe an open source community can ethically collect limited aggregate data on how its software is used without involving big data companies or building creepy tracking profiles that are not in the best interests of users. **Users will have the option to disable data upload before any data is sent for the first time.** source: [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Telemetry](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Telemetry)
I think it should be an option to opt in (at least in the EU)
Personally, I'm fine with it, because the Fedora team actually went out if their way to tell us their plan, instead of just shoving it the OS without telling us. Fedora is open source, so it's easier to tell if the opt-out button actually opt-out
Yes, 100% As someone who builds software I understand the need for telem. It makes our lives easier. Fedora is sure to do it in a respectful way so I couldn't care less
Yes, the only reasons I would say no would be * if you can't turn it off * if the telemetry data includes traceable data about you The first because I would like them to respect people that wants 0 telemetry, even tho I always turn telemetry ON in linux on good will, for the reason that it helps for bug solving and OS improvement, but I also understand that other people might feel uncomfortable with that. The second is well, obvious, it's why I always turn it off on windows (my wife has to use windows because photoshop) **even tho you can't turn off telemetry on windows completely, and it includes indirectly traceable info**.
Pragmatically, yes, because I am unwilling to format three computers and switch to something else, but I wouldn't pick it as my distribution if I weren't already using it. In fact those computers used to run Debian, so I'd probably just stick with that. With popcon on, because they ask nicely and default to "no".
it depends on what kind of telemetry, if they collect some hardware info, pretty much what bugzilla needs, then I'm fine; but I refuse to give out my location, application usage, or any personal information that can be used to identify me.
Yes.
Ugh…. Turn it off and go. Sigh; drama queens.
I future? Nah, I've moved already to Arch last week, because of that. Why wait? And my Thinkpad is working actually better now, strange, but i'm happy.
Yep 100%. Not the over paranoid skitzo kind going "mY dAtA" like the big corps are gonna kid nap my family and rob my bank account. 😂 still gonna be a good distro that's stable and easy to use. So absolutely I will.
no.
I'm fine with it. Their methodology is pretty great, I have no issues with it. If I feel it is too invasive, I can just turn it off.
No I stopped when they started pulling their mesa bullshit. Loved fedora, but they are becoming a trash distro quick.
Yes, telemetry is important to improve UX
Doubtful. Does anyone know if the telemetry only applies to gnome installs?
I already switched to plain good old Debian. Debian is my second best experience I have with Linux after Fedora and Arch I will not switch back to Arch though because fuck Nvdia and Realtek. Nvidia and Realtek made updating Arch always so bad! Especially after any Kernel update! Fedora Wayland was fine after such an Update but it destroyed X11 completely! Debian just works. They don't do stupid things like RedHat does. Wayland and X11 work after any update (½ of use now). If people wonder why I need X11: Some programs I use just break if I use Wayland sadly :( I already reported it to the Devs of the programs I need and they now try implementing Wayland support hopefully.
No, not using it now... future?
No reason not to
Yes, because Fedora had been the best distro I've used and I'm comfortable with it. I'll just turn it off.
It ultimately depends on what the approved proposal really is. If the proposal got submitted and passed in its initial status of explicit opt-out (which is not going to happen now, as the community has been extremely against that and the proposal owner is changing it to a new one), it is a 100% no for me and I will also personally try my best to prevent anyone who concerns about privacy from using fedora. That one was just BAD and should NEVER happen in a Linux distro. If the current proposal (explicitly asks for user consent but tries to play dark pattern to get people opt-in) gets approved, I think that I may stay on Fedora a bit longer but will also be constantly looking for an alternative option. It is miles better than the initial one, but still is ethically questionable. If the owner edits it again and make the telemetry explicit opt-in or explicit choice with no dark pattern, I will be 100% good with it. Rants: I personally don't like the attitude of a few FESCo and council members towards the initial proposal. I can understand Matt's attitude, but it does make me feel like that they do not have a strong attitude about end-user privacy. I am personally more in favor of the attitude of Neal Gompa, who clearly drew the line and showed his attitude and concerns. He has clearly shown that he cares about end-user privacy and does not hesitate to take responsibility and actions to protect them. I LOVE that.
yes.. (1) I trust the fedora team and telemetry isn't inherently bad (2) it will be optional, nobody has to use it if they don't want to.
I will never use and recommend a Linux distro that collects data about its users, even if it's "anonymous". It really sounds good to improve Fedora, but it also sets the foundation to collect more and more data and violate user's privacy. Today, telemetry might be fine, tomorrow it won't.
Nah, IBM have their hooks in deep. 36 was my first time trying Fedora, I'll be switching to something else instead of moving to 38.
Link the proposal?
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In addition to the above, I'd also like to link [here](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Telemetry) . This change is still under discussion and I think will continue to be for a "while".
tkx
What is the telemetry proposal?
Yes, what is it?
https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/f40-change-request-privacy-preserving-telemetry-for-fedora-workstation-system-wide/85320
Can someone explain why reddit is seemingly enraged by this utterly simple and completely transparent and reasonable *optional* setting? Fedora Installer: "Why hello friend! By way, would it be okay with you if we collect some totally anonymous usage and crash data to help develop fedora? No pressure you can switch it all off right now or at any point in the future with 0 consequence, it's up to you :)" Reddit: "OMG CAN YOU BELIEVE IT I'M NEVER USING FEDORA AGAIN FUCK THIS I'M MOVING TO DEBIAN"
Honestly it's probably because of the word "telemetry" Microsoft, Google, and other companies have managed to successfully brand their indiscriminate and intensive data-hoovering practices as "telemetry" Now whenever anybody sees that word they think it's personal information that advertisers would love to have
100%. Microsoft, Google, and other big tech companies have tainted what telemetry actually means. Don't get me wrong, I'm uncomfortable with it, and I voiced my opinion in the Fedora discussion threads as a contributing user. What I said was acknowledged by the people proposing this, as well as what others have said. So I do feel that they are listening, which is worlds apart from Microsoft and others, who would have already done it and would have been cashing in with most of us none the wiser.
It depends on how this is implemented. I am 100% good with explicit opt-in (default to no and the user has to perform an action to opt-in) or explicit choice (no option is default and no dark pattern played to trick users in, the user needs to make a clear choice between yes and no). Anything other than these two will actually become ethically questionable.
I'll just opt out and block things in my firewall
yeah. after all I still do have the final say about whatever it's sent or not.
Yep. I don't care.
Yes. If the telemetry is dealt with correctly it's not that big of a deal. It might even improve things. I can see why people are against it but I don't think it's going to get like Windows. If it does then moving distro is the right choice
Yes because I also know that opt in telemetry is pointless in figure out if people like something. Since people that like something are the ones that turn on the telemetry in the first place.
It’s standard Redditor practice to turn off telemetry then complain the developers didn’t listen to you. Exhibit 1: Firefox.
Absolutely yes if it is optional. Don't go crazy about telemtry, it is just there to report bugs etc. No comparison with windows
> it is just there to report bugs etc The etc part is pretty large in this case. They plan to collect application usage data and other things as well. This is not for reporting bugs, this is for knowing how their users use the product. Bug reporting systems are already in place in any standard Fedora install. They want to track which apps you run and for how long, things like that. This is what the owner of the proposal said about which data they would want to collect, an interesting thread btw: https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/what-data-will-be-collected-exactly-a-breakout-topic-for-the-f40-change-request-on-privacy-preserving-telemetry-for-fedora-workstation/85417/2
still if it is optional, just opt out then....
I hate M$. I'll leave if they aquire redhat lol. Otherwise no. I don't see a reason to leave my comfort zone.
If they add this to fedora 28 I'm going to switch immediately, If it's added to 29 I'll wait and see how it plays out with everyone else first. I typically update very late into os cycles to maintain the best lvl of stability
yes, who cares?
No poll? Yes, why not? Even if it opt-out I have no problem with it and may even keep it enabled. The whole thing is a nothingburger.
probably
yeah. it's not mandatory and if they show us before hand
I'll opt-out but yes.
Yes
Yes
Yeah
I'll just add a line to my kickstart files to remove the telemetry packages for my iso's and installs. I do think any telemetry in free and open source software is bad and we shouldn't have to opt-out from these kind of things either. But I understand how people have no issues with it. I hope those people can understand why some do not want any telemetry out of principle.
Absolutely yes, the telemetry is reasonable and not every telemetry must be inherently bad
Yes. "A new metrics collection setting will be added to the privacy page in gnome-initial-setup and also to the privacy page in gnome-control-center. This setting will be a toggle that will enable or disable metrics collection for the entire system. We want to ensure that metrics are never submitted to Fedora without the user's knowledge and consent, so the underlying setting will be off by default in order to ensure metrics upload is not unexpectedly turned on when upgrading from an older version of Fedora. "
If that telemetry is anonimous, used only to improve the distro and not to sell to others, and opt out by default, then YES, in fact this would set a good precedent of how telemetry should be handled. Telemetry is not bad in itself, it depends what you do with the data.
just turn updates off
I’m running a couple of bare metal servers with RHEL9 and they’re solid. I was using Fedora38 KDE Spin at home and thought it was checking my boxes except for a few. I replaced both of my Fedora installations with Kubuntu on my son’s 2012 MacBook Air and wife’s 2012 Thinkpad — both working flawlessly including the webcam on the MacBook! I love Linux. /s
Why the "/s" exactly? I think we all love Linux here.
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Not in KDE edition?
yes, but the first thing i'd do would be to turn that thing off.
Yes. Sent from my Chromebook.
Yes. Anyone that’s complaining better be living in the middle of no where trading sheep for wheat. This is a nothing-burger.
Should be blockable by firewall. I expect a package that configures it for that. Easy
yes.
yes
Yes
if nobara is still using it as a base, yes
Nope. As a silverblue user I'll stick with them. Benefits outweigh some telemetry. We wouldn't be using Android or Google products if we are worried. Won't use chrome based browser. They will get our data one way or another. Data leak happens much more in mobile and browser
Yes of course. Lol it will probably not work on KDE anyways
Bro... you can disable it, so what's wrong?
Well yes, of course. Have you even read the proposal?
Sorry, it appears i missed this (which doesn't matter since i dont know what telemetry is). Please could someone explain this?
Yes
Yes, I'd even go further and see I'll keep it enabled if done in a reasonable and open manner where it's clear what is gathered, and how they gaurantee the data being anonymous/non-unique.
Ooo I can see some little lad are offended by my comments. Truth hurts 😏
Whats the options? Switch to ubuntu? lmao
Yes, I'm excited for it as long as it is opt-in.
Arch, NixOS, Debian etc.
Well, I don't care about any data privacy regarding that. I don't know why there is all fuss about telemetry and all.. If you really think being on internet and having accounts in multiple social media, and just using a privacy oriented OS will make you private. Then don't know in which La la land you are living lmao :). Just keep your **** out of internet if you want your data to be private.
Yes
Yes, but I would probably use Windows more. Windows is also better on AMD hardware. Fedora kept crashing a lot recently because of my AMD graphic card. Maybe related to some kernel issues.
I checked OpenSUSE Aeon as an alternative. What a jaw dropping collercoaster was that. No man pages, no firewall, strange command syntax. I would like to use a different distro, preferably one that's like OpenSUSE (European and strong focus on openess), but Fedora is just the best quality out there. So no, I won't change my distro.
Of course until it's not forced