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  • Post #1
I didn't pay attention to it until now, thinking it was not going to be adopted so quickly, but KDE now comes with telemetry by default on Archlinux. Here is the telemetry package https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/kuserfeedback/ and a list of software that use it.
These packages are not rebuilded on Obarun until now.

From now I have two options to offer.
1) There are enough peoples that use KDE and I take care of rebuilding all the packages without this shit.
2) I stop my work of supporting KDE under Obarun because I don't want to participate in this which goes against my morale and against the essence of free software.
You missed my message:
https://forum.obarun.org/viewtopic.php?pid=8583# p8583

https://www.summertime.tech/dtw.EN.html

Where I say it is time Obarun drops the crap called KDE

I am writing an article about this though, because this is creating a false sense of security, that if you opt out of KDE telemetry backdoor you assume it doesn't exist unofficially in 1000 other places (let's not talk about Mozilla the dissapointment of the century and a wakeup call of how something initially good turn to absolute crap)

I am still stuck with my suspicion theory (little support yet) for the connection of uuid ipv6 dbus logind ipv6 and even nonsensical interface names. What have all these "features" offered practically to the user? 1000 backdoors flowing unique fingerprints through unique ipv6 connections to who knows who ...
Sad to hear KDE is doing this. I don't currently use Plasma but I would like to have the option. :(

@ fungal_net, I block all IPv6 traffic on my perimeter and use a blackhole DNS for telemetry specifically to combat this crud. Using DNS is like playing wack-a-mole so it's not perfect.
@ jean-michel, I am one of those who have always used Plasma because I have always found it beautiful and user-friendly. I had been pretending not to know that they are sponsored by.. GOOGLE, I am aware that it's becoming harder and harder to keep it free from systemd, and the use of telemetry really disappointed me. However, I still hope you follow option 1) unless it gets too heavy as burden or ethnically unacceptable.

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  • Post #5
https://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/202109/page09.html
KDE: What Is It?

Most people know KDE because of its Plasma desktop environment, its applications and its community. Few have ever observed that, at the bottom of their website, there is the indication of an organization called KDE e.V. If you click on it, you will find out that the desktop and the apps are all property of this non-profit organization based in Germany. So far so good. It is always nice to have a legal framework to protect software development. But, as in any organization, you need money to run it. For it, you need supporting members: little ones, which, in KDE's case, must donate at least one hundred euros, and the corporate ones. Large corporations must pay a yearly fee of ten thousand euros (roughly US $11,700), and are then called "patrons". Among KDE's patrons are Google, Canonical, SUSE and Qt. Now things start to become clearer! Here is Google again on the scene, with Canonical and SUSE! And the last two have also implemented telemetry on their systems! What a coincidence!

But this is not all. Because, when you have money, gates are fully open to you! When you are a patron, you automatically join KDE's advisory board. Among board members, we have: Debian (funded by Google and HP Enterprise), Canonical, SUSE (both funded by AWS, Google, Huawei, Microsoft and IBM), Qt and the Open Source Initiative (which is also funded by Google and IBM). Oddly, Google disappears from the board, but it is always backstage. But now one can understand why you cannot remove KUserFeedback from Debian without removing Plasma. They are among the ones who decided it and are backed by Big G.

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  • Post #6
Well, I need to take some fresh air to think about what we are going to do. Different solution for now comes in my mind:

1) Rebuild the packages
2) Fork the softwares and remove the code that rely on telemetry
3) Move away from KDE, but we need a serious alternative in place.
4) Feel free to give any other ideas.
Hey @ jean-michel, I think you already know but pclinuxos, that is maybe the only other build still using ck2, has completely removed kuserfeedback without any side effects. Also, they have added a patch to sddm that fixes the issues with ck2. Maybe it would be interesting to borrow their solutions.
From a DE that openly supports and applies telemetry forking and patching and blocking can never be adequate that it is no longer happening. On the other hand KDE can do what they like, you (obarun) have the responsibility to protect users according to your principles or share the values and principles of KDE by providing their sw as part of your installer.

There can't be a gray area, same applies to gnome. It may exist in Arch repositories but it doesn't get any support from Obarun. KDE gets plenty of support.

Qt-base has been left behind 3-4 versions against arch as arch keeps applying more and more patches to accomodate KDE. At some point with 96% of qt5 coming from arch qt5-base will break qt5 based sw. It is inevitable. Why is it relevant? Build vanilla qt5 as Arch was designed to do and let KDE people do all the patching necessary. Meanwhile qt6 has been out for 6mos , qt5 is no longer supported, and there is nothing in Obarun in relation to qt6. Anything from arch requiring qt6 has been kept back because qt6 is uninstallable.

I don't see there is much to think about, KDE took a turn and either you follow it away from open/free software or you drop it and maintain some dignity. This is not systemd making or breaking a system, it is a DE. This is linux being hijacked by corporate terrorists.
I was a huge fan of KDE Plasma for about 5 years before coming to Obarun. I honestly can't say I miss anything about it.

Yeah it looks nice, but in all honesty I don't want something that - by dint of looking nicer than barebones JWM - makes me spend more time on it than I ought to :D
jean-michel wroteWell, I need to take some fresh air to think about what we are going to do. Different solution for now comes in my mind:

1) Rebuild the packages
2) Fork the softwares and remove the code that rely on telemetry
3) Move away from KDE, but we need a serious alternative in place.
4) Feel free to give any other ideas.
Sorry for the delay but I think that the proposal 3) is the right one .
4) :)

Remove the support of the telemetry for now and warn Obarun user about the future no-support of KDE. As i said many times, KDE dev took the decision to handle their desktop init service by systemd. So soon or later this desktop will not works anymore without systemDOS and i think i will not waste time to replace their service init by 66 manager.

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  • Post #13
Thank you for the feedback, without telemetry! incredible :D

So, for now telemetry has been removed from the compilation with an option available for this purpose https://forum.obarun.org/viewtopic.php?id=1500 and I would be happy to be able to offer an user-friendly alternative to Plasma and KDE applications, but right now I have nothing to show you.

Personally a fork of Plasma and KDE applications is possible and I can show you some work I have done with patches that remove the telemetry code from the source, it's available for KDE dolphin application right now and I can do the same for all others KDE application, so what the problem?

The biggest problem is that I'm alone on this work, and it is a job that takes time and at least need other eyes to carry out checks. I am realistic and I do not have the means to achieve this task alone for the long term.
I hear IBM is handing out grants to help good people like you hire more maintainers.
Send your application at mrSmith@ redhat.ibm.com
6 days later
Jean-Michel, let me know if there anything I can do to help you test.

*On peux correspondre en français si vous préférez*

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