Ah, back in the days before Lennart and RHEL killed linux.
Having only run debian for a job interview - where I had to learn systemd and I fucking crushed it, woo - I would never have picked out that makefile line. Kudos.
Having run automation in 2002 based on package triggers, makefile, cron and awk, I completely approve of using makefiles to orchestrate startup. That's actually genius.
Anonymous data is useless. Most any data can be de-anonymized. And tracking data is always to "improve services" until the companies are offered significant sums for it..
The thing is that telemetry can be useful... bug reports let the developer know which bugs occur the most, feature logging lets the developer know which features are used the most (and thus what they might want to focus on adding new functionality to), etc. It's become a dirty word since a lot of companies have telemetry that's way too intrusive.
Yep! I understand, which is why I was clarifying for the previous commenter. As for if telemetry is morally justified, or if we should go back to old fashioned bug reports and some sort of upload system that requires direct user buy-in as the payment for privacy at the cost of reliability, mobility, and scalability is a discussion for someone else haha.