I stumbled upon a message by one of the members of Godot PLC (Project Leadership Committee) by Clay John.

According to Clay John at Godot Contributors Chat, core maintainers are beginning to consider adding telemetry into Godot in some way or another, a free and open-source game engine:

Source: Godot Contributors Chat, communication channel (you have to be registered there in order to see it, but the channel appears to be public).

To compare it to other open-source projects, see Audacity's case, acquired by Muse Group, namely this pull request. They said that telemetry is "strictly optional and disabled by default." This is similar to considerations of a "light" version of the opt-in telemetry discussed at the meeting among Godot's core maintainers.

What do you think about it? Do you think Godot will benefit from some telemetry, even if it's opt-in?

    Xrayez opt-in

    I agree that opt-in is a necessity.

    I suppose it could be useful. One example would be to keep statistics on error messages. If certain errors occur frequently, that could point to areas of the documentation or API that need improvement.

    Like the rest of Godot, the telemetry code must be open-source, so that anyone could inspect it and see if there's anything problematic.

      I think it would be great if they could allow enabling telemetry on a per-download/build of godot basis i.e. handled by the Project Manager, and then to also allow disabling on a per-project basis. Some users could potentially be working on a particular project where they don't like the idea of sharing data, but be fine with it the rest of the time.

      Also, if every fresh "install" of godot requires a new opt-in for telemetry which details what data is being sent, and if the only way to change the open-sourced telemetry code is via a new build of godot, then people could be confident that no data is being collected from them without their consent.

        Telemetry can be useful. But those who want it in the engine must be completely up front about this. It must be discussed on the Godot GitHub page, in the project's Discord chatrooms (or IRC, Matrix, or whatever), and across the various Godot social media pages. Whoever wants this in the engine must get the input of those who will use the engine. To put this in the engine without the input of the users would be seen as something against the principles in which the project was founded. We saw what happened when they try to sneak telemetry in Audacity.

        I considered adding this to Dixie Ball, we wanted to understand where the players tended to get stuck or loiter around. I believe it wouldn't be ethical unless it was an opt-in, disabled by default thing.

        In the engine's case, what would telemetry be used for?

          In the engine's case, what would telemetry be used for?

          (Just my guess) Telemetry would tell the development team how often each Godot feature is used. e.g. Visual scripting was dropped from Godot 4 b/c the dev team felt that it wasn't used much, and wasn't worth the effort to upgrade. Telemetry would let them know precisely how often it was used.

          This can help set priorities of upgrades and bug fixes.

          Valknor fun fact you may already know, that's what a lot of developers use steam achievements for. when I saw that it made sense why so many games had an achievement for clearing each and every level.

            award I think it would be great if they could allow enabling telemetry on a per-download/build of godot basis i.e. handled by the Project Manager, and then to also allow disabling on a per-project basis.

            In a multi-seat office/studio handling things like this would be a sysadmin task.

            I can definitely see a sysadmin from such an environment making a request for a configurable install script or installer for network/multi-deployment be provided by the core project. Or a more experienced sysadmin might even be willing to contribute the work towards it if it's deemed important enough to invest their own resources towards developing it internally anyways.

              I have found this funny tweet by Juan Linietsky, the lead developer of Godot, just some months ago. 😁

              One thing that I never understood as a Linux user since the 90s: People buy their own computers, it's their property, so why are they so accepting today of using software that runs locally, but then forces them to login and send telemetry [emphasis mine] in order to work and do anything ?

              I appreciate the way you all are discussing the potential benefits of opt-in telemetry in Godot! Who knows, maybe the developers will take note of your feedback, assuming that they are monitoring these forums. That being said, it's uncertain whether they are actively monitoring these forums or not. Nevertheless, they do appear to gather certain statistics to demonstrate the extent of Godot's adoption according to Juan's two-year-old tweet. At the same, it's kind of weird that he finds it necessary to explicitly state that they don't use any sort of telemetry:

              Despite this, as a co-author of Godot, if you all find opt-in telemetry to be particularly useful, especially considering the recent productive discussion on telemetry as delivered by Clay John, I genuinely encourage you to put together a proposal regarding telemetry if you have any concrete use cases in mind. Alternatively, you could start an open-ended discussion on this topic. This would help the core developers better understand how to incorporate such a feature effectively.

              Xrayez What do you think about it?

              Nuke it from orbit.

              Xrayez According to Clay John at Godot Contributors Chat, core maintainers are beginning to consider adding telemetry into Godot

              Who? I presume he's one of them, since he called it "a productive discussion". Whoever they are, perhaps they ought to be gatekept out of the PLC to send a clear message. It's contentious but sometimes it has to be done.

                    10 days later

                    synthnostate Who? I presume he's one of them

                    Sure, as I said, Clay John is an official member of Godot PLC, see Governance page at Godot's official website. They represent The Board of Directors. Everyone you see listed there should be treated as an official representative of Godot. He also works at for-profit W4 Games founded by Juan Linietsky (lead developer of Godot) and others, according to information from Godot Foundation.

                    So, if I were you, I'd treat the information provided by Clay John thoughtfully. Considering that W4 Games specializes in providing online services for Godot, the topic of telemetry makes sense in this context.

                        Telemetry is ideologically incompatible with free software. Whoever actively advocates shoehorning any kind of telemetry into a project like Godot is generally out of their mind, or has a dubious agenda.

                          Xrayez I've noticed he's a pretty major code contributor. Still, that doesn't automatically justify his actions any more than it did your actions that got you gatekept. If he's wrong, he's wrong.

                          @cybereality may have been off the mark with his rants about W4 funding, however, all this money being thrown at Godot will surely destroy it if the leaders let it get to their heads. It happens to every big successful open source project. It's just a matter of time.

                            xyz Telemetry is ideologically incompatible with free software.

                            Telemetry is a tool. Nothing more. The question is how it is used and whether it can be canceled. Why it cannot be "ideologically compatible" with open source software when it can be disabled is the greatest mystery.

                                Tomcat Clay John did say "opt-in telemetry" but that's a slippery slope especially for marketing. Let's look into this... is it for insight into compatibility and performance issues, or for marketing?

                                Contrary to what OP said, you don't need an account to read https://chat.godotengine.org/channel/communication, but the message link doesn't work, you have to scroll up 10 or 20 pages as of now. It's the Communication (i.e. marketing) channel, and yes the context is download numbers.

                                Screenshots for those who can't be bothered:

                                Click to reveal Click to hide




                                Contrary to OP's implication, Clay John is clearly NOT advocating for telemetry.

                                Yuri Sizov (who OP would prefer be removed from leadership) said:

                                Not tracking users is a point of principle for the organization
                                While it limits the amount of data we can use to effectively make decision and develop the engine, or adjust the website for example, we think that the value of privacy is greater than that.

                                I get the picture: OP is spreading FUD as usual. Godot leadership did nothing wrong.

                                    synthnostate Yuri Sizov (who OP would prefer be removed from leadership) said:

                                    Not tracking users is a point of principle for the organization

                                    Well, then there is no problem at all. Except the problem of the clumsy troll. 🧌

                                      synthnostate Contrary to OP's implication, Clay John is clearly NOT advocating for telemetry.

                                      This is your implication, not mine. Please don't put your words into my mouth. The quote is self-sufficient to indicate that the leadership had a productive discussion about some light, opt-in telemetry, nothing more. If you expect them to write an official announcement about such a decision, they likely won't do so, as they have learned from Audacity's case, where the community expressed extreme disapproval against telemetry in any form.

                                      So yes, the question becomes why Clay John had to say this in the first place, which led me to the idea that they might be adding telemetry to future products by W4 Games, such as the recently announced W4 Consoles. In either case, W4 does plan to provide matchmaking services that may necessitate adding telemetry.

                                      In either case, please recognize the difference between words vs actions. The question is how they're going to balance corporate needs vs open-source needs. Another company co-founded by Godot's leadership is Ramatak. If you read their first blog post:

                                      Since talk is cheap we set up Ramatak Inc. as a “Public benefits company”. For Ramatak this means that we will not be allowed to, for instance, “take back” contributions by making a piece of code we once released under an open source license proprietary in the future. In this way we feel that we can be a trustworthy member of the community.

                                      The credibility of all these assurances is well known. Godot leadership can be trusted. You don't have to worry about them operating all these for-profit companies behind your back. 🙃

                                          Xrayez This is your implication, not mine. Please don't put your words into my mouth. The quote is self-sufficient to indicate...

                                          No, you took that quote out of context.

                                              synthnostate Xrayez This is your implication, not mine. Please don't put your words into my mouth. The quote is self-sufficient to indicate...

                                              No, you took that quote out of context.

                                              Your incomplete quote of what I said could be considered out of context under a similar interpretation. But as you see, I don't blame you for quoting me out of context, because I understand the nature of Godot's community by now.

                                              What I've noticed is that in Godot community, everything is labeled out of context whenever quoting is utilized to expose questionable decisions... 🙃

                                              This is actually a typical behavior when people stumble upon conflicting information that creates cognitive dissonance, as they try to reconcile their initial expectations and beliefs with reality.

                                                  Xrayez
                                                  Ok... A warning has already been given since you failed to follow the rules multiple times. Again, you are out of line, now including the entire community. Not OK. As to violating rules 1, 2, 3, 4, and 9, You are now banned from the Forum.

                                                  I want to remind everyone to keep disagreements civil and respectful and not make assumptions about someone's implications. Instead, ask for a clarification. And if anyone feels misquoted, then respectfully correct the other person and include context, in a manner that doesn't invite further unnecessary conflict.

                                                  I struggle to see anything constructive in the last few posts, and it seems to be heading down the conspiracy/speculative territory. I'm locking this thread.