Re:Why do Open Information People Care? (Score 1)

I think for software development to be truly successful, it's essential to collect data from your users. No matter, how superior your developers, testers, project managers or user interface designers are, in the end, you need some way of measuring the experience your user is having with your product. Be it Windows, Linux, or the Macintosh. Now, collecting data without the user's consent is illegal - some forms of spyware do this, search engines at time do this as their very usage is implicit consent (say search queries). Now, IMO, Windows does a great job of informing you and asking you for consent (Let's ignore the fact that there are a large number of such prompts). In Vista, the Control Panel prompts you, Check for solution dialog prompts you, and as someone else has said Customer Experience Improvement Program prompts you. Therefore, the characterization that Vista plucks your data sneakily is somewhat far fetched. What's worthwhile to discuss is A] Is the consent experience simple enough and clear enough for all users to understand? B] Are too many consent choices being offered to the user? [This would be annoying] C] Is the consent explicit enough in describing 'exactly' what's collected? I do think Vista doesnt do a great job with these. However, the user does have the option of being conservative and saying no. Microsoft is not a two penny company - companies of that size know how to treat customer data seriously. If there are concerns about how that data maybe shared, then one should not consent into these programs. To be truly fair in discussion, one should not criticize the concept of data collection, but rather evaluate how it's done. Good data collection followed by solid product changes are beneficial to the software community as the whole. And we'd be doing a great injustice in portraying data collection in such poor light.