Before we get into it, the linked ticket is a cluster of over 40 tickets all dealing with the same thing and Jetbrains (JB for short) pretty much did nothing. So if you are working in a heavily regulated part of the industry, handle proprietary code or are just hobby-dev not liking the idea to be spied on. The link above is for you. I fear there is more hostile behavior to come from that vendor. Ironically I am posting this here and not there because, after having penned this - and I took my time composing it and didn't want that effort to go to wase -, I noticed that I was not able to reply as all comments were closed, effectively silencing everyone.
Enjoy the read and I encourage you to pilfer through the tickets.<p>------------<p>One thing I would like to point, as some may feel this way as well and have just never explicitly vociferated it or never thought about that aspect before. The core-problem for all of this is is not a technical but a less tangible one that is harder to fix - if at all.<p>If JB would've turned around and provided a stand along plugin running (maybe even split it between running via API and locally) it would've been a pleasant, thoughtful and welcome update. After all, this is where the industry is heading at the moment and only an idiot fights the wind. If they would've provided a plugin for the sole purpose of collecting training-data, that would've been ok as well. Some Open-Source folk working in public, might've liked to help out improve that AI that it may serve all of us on our local machines.<p>Instead we saw ..... this.... in all its detail and I am very sure that there was/is stuff going on behind the scenes that we don't know and will never know about.<p>I would like to point out that, while they could've done it, they did not disable the IDE when some users deleted the bundled plug-in.Maybe they didn't think of it? To be seen. So I can still, like any physical appliance, buy the thing, put it wherever I like and even work on it.<p>Why people buy appliances with cameras and put them in living-space(e.g. bedroom, living-room, etc.) even though they may not be enabled is beyond me. However, that is the equivalent of what happened here IMHO and those with subscription were blind-sided by it.<p>That shipping with an update violates the concept of agency. I should have the ultimate say in what can and cannot run on my machine and I can have this say without open source as well, as that addresses a different matter altogether(the ability to proof it).<p>Most people do not mind benign functionality which is also the reason why most of the bundled plugins didn't stand out or cause an uproar.<p>The Ai-functionality provided is different though and we developers are rightfully a paranoid bunch as we work in our industry daily and know how some exec's and c-suite darlings cut through red-tape and are rather ruthless at times. They took away our agency in this matter thinking that we will be docile like most non-tech people or fanboys.<p>I would've overlooked this matter more than gladly if JB would've been more engaging. We all make mistakes and misjudging something sometimes is a staple trade of the human condition after all. I fear that the lack of engagement displayed by JB is indicative of other things though. For one, that they only wanted to commit to things that they would have no choice but to commit to. Also, I would say that the move we saw from JB today only came about because they were hoping that, like most shitstorms on the Inet, this would abate and that complacency will take over and then they got cold feet.<p>The fact that the plugin is still sitting there is also not boding well, which means that if I ever were to use their product ever again, I would be forced to watch the network-traffic very closely. Not because the product is closed-source but because of the aforementioned underlying non-technical.