Canonical being silly again - Can this not be in Kubuntu, please?

[jglen490]

Sometimes, and for the best of intentions, good people become bad actors.

I for one do not want Canonical to end up that way. I really think they have tried, but have not thought this process out completely. I don't know if any Canonical folks frequent this forum, and if so i hope they take this conversation to heart.

[TWPonKubuntu]

...I don't know if any Canonical folks frequent this forum, and if so i hope they take this conversation to heart.

Let's hope they do hear us.

[Bings]

Does anybody know whether this will be part of the kubuntu install yet?

[chimak111]

Does anybody know whether this will be part of the kubuntu install yet?

Is it clear that Ubuntu, leave aside Kubuntu, will go ahead? There's a post that indicates that the legal position isn't 100% settled: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ub...ch/040210.html

Leave it to the implementors to check with Canonical legal and make sure
that the final implementation will be in compliance. The minutiae of
compliance is not a matter for this list. If you think the whole
principle would not be in compliance, then either they'll agree with you
and it won't happen, or they'll disagree with you and it will happen.
Whichever way, arguments amongst engineers on this list from a legal
perpsective will not make the slightest bit of difference.

[Bings]

Well I tried the Ubuntu beta last week and also the Kubuntu RC yesterday and it's not in either. So, hopefully this has been quietly shelved.

[GreyGeek]

Or, they could have installed a ubiquitously named daemon to run as root, undocumented, no man page, and not listed by any process id listing sofware. How many of us verify the source code before we compile our distro? I haven't verified or compiled source since I played with LFS, over 15 years ago. I've always run the binaries since I adopted Kubuntu & Neon.

But, given the nature and watchfulness of the FOSS community, I don't see how Ubuntu could hide such a program in their distro and have it evade detection.

[Bings]

I was wrong, it is actually in there both ubuntu and kubuntu.

https://www.howtogeek.com/349844/how...about-your-pc/

The “popularity-contest” or “popcon” tool also is installed by default on Ubuntu 18.04. This tool reports to Ubuntu which software packages you have installed on your system. Ubuntu then knows exactly how popular each package is, and they can use this information to focus their development efforts.

In Kubuntu release candidate:

popularity-contest/bionic,bionic,now 1.66ubuntu1 all [installed]
 Vote for your favourite packages automatically

Installed without asking permission. Thumbs down to that.

[GreyGeek]

sudo apt remove popularity-contest

Problem solved.

[oshunluvr]

sudo apt remove popularity-contest

problem solved.

+1 :d ....

[chimak111]

popularity-contest/bionic,bionic,now 1.66ubuntu1 all [installed]
Vote for your favourite packages automatically

popcon is different than what the first post in the thread is about. popcon has been around for quite a few releases. I think popcon originated in Debian and is opt-in.

[claydoh]

popcon was one of the tools in the proposal. popcon=popularity contest.

[Bings]

sudo apt remove popularity-contest

Problem solved.

Not putting bad software in the distro.

Problem avoided.

Plus you can only solve a problem if you know it's there.

[Bings]

popcon is different than what the first post in the thread is about. popcon has been around for quite a few releases. I think popcon originated in Debian and is opt-in.

Well, I wasn't aware it was already included (albeit turned off?), it is phrased in the article like a proposed inclusion. In Ubuntu main, I can't see an option to disable it in their software and updates dialog.

[chimak111]

Here's the Ubuntu manpage for 12.04: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/...contest.8.html just to show it's been around awhile.

On my Kubuntu 16.04, I have /etc/popularity-contest.conf which I didn't bother to look at till now:

# Config file for Debian's popularity-contest package.
#
# To change this file, use:
#        dpkg-reconfigure popularity-contest
#
# You can also edit it by hand, if you so choose.
#
# See /usr/share/popularity-contest/default.conf for more info
# on the options.

MY_HOSTID="08b2..."
PARTICIPATE="no"
USEHTTP="yes"
DAY="1"

[GreyGeek]

Not putting bad software in the distro.

Problem avoided.

Plus you can only solve a problem if you know it's there.

That was the thrust of msg #36. Your msg #37 established that it wasn’t “hidden”. Ergo, no secrets. Easy to use apt.


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