Open source fans are in an uproar as the popular app got new management. This wouldn't be a problem if the new administrators didn't add some features to the popular app to collect data telemetrys.
Let's see what happened:
Audacity is a free audio and recording editor that allows you to mix and edit any number of audio files. The program is written in C++ and uses the toolcase wxWidgets GUI to provide the same GUI on different operating systems.
The open source Audacity audio software was acquired by Muse Group, which appointed a new management team responsible for developing and of course the new features. A few days after the change, the new administration decided to add some "basic telemetry capabilities" to the software. The announcement was made this week on GitHub by Dmitry Vedenko, who, among other things, Reported that they use the Google Analytics to monitor the following:
- Start and end the session
- Errors, such as those of sqlite3, as we need to troubleshoot issues mentioned in the Audacity forum
- Use effects, sound generators, analysis tools so we can prioritize future improvements.
- Use file formats for import and export
- Operating system and Audacity versions
To detect session sessions, users receive a UUID that is created and stored on their computer. Developers also use Yandex Metrica to properly assess daily active users. The reason why a second service was used is not clear but they report that Google Analytics has very limited ratios. Of course, the name of the developer who announced the changes is Russian (Dmitry Vedenko), and maybe that is one of the reasons for choosing Yandex Russia.
Both services however, they record the IP from which the request originates.
According to the new management team telemetry data collection is optional and adjustable. The open source community however is not thrilled with the news.
So if the new development team does not respect Audacity friends who have been using it for so many years, they will probably lose users, as the market has a lot of applications.
