Chip,<br>The "adherence to free software philosophy" cuts both ways. Take a look here: <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/stats/">http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/stats/</a>. The pie chart there tells you about active versions, and this is provided by WP for all its plugins, <b>without the informed consent of the end user</b>. One might argue that WordPress is not a "third party", but that doesn't change the fact that users never provide their consent to let WP mine information on which version of a plugin they will use. <br>
<br>While as a theme and plugin developer, and as a user I don't particularly care where this discussion lands (I am never going to add tracking code myself but I am perfectly okay if WP introduces this in the repository), it does seem like this team is trying to propose something that WP doesn't adhere to by itself. Of course, I am certain that PII such as web site information etc. aren't collected, but this is a privacy gray area nonetheless.<br>
<br>Sayontan.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 12:01 PM, Chip Bennett <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:chip@chipbennett.net">chip@chipbennett.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
The very act of pinging a third party upon activation of a Theme - and doing so without the informed consent of the end user - is a violation of the free-software principle that users have the right to use software "<i>without being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific entity</i>".<div>
<br></div><div>The rest of your arguments still miss the fundamental point that the issue here is not the usefulness/benefit of the service, but rather that the <b>informed consent of the end user</b> is paramount, and is required, both as a matter of adherence to free software philosophy and also as a matter of <a href="http://wordpress.org" target="_blank">wordpress.org</a> policy.</div>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<div><br></div></font></span><div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">Chip<br></font></span><br></div></blockquote></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Sayontan Sinha<br><a href="http://mynethome.net" target="_blank">http://mynethome.net</a> | <a href="http://mynethome.net/blog" target="_blank">http://mynethome.net/blog</a><br>
--<br>Beating Australia in Cricket is like killing a celebrity. The death gets more coverage than the crime.<br><br>