[seemslegit]

This is a losing proposition that will only lend credence to the inherently violent opt-out approach to data collection.

Instead how about a do-not-hire-or-collaborate-with registry of the individual contributors participating in projects that employ those tactics and see how they like trying to opt out of it.

[sneak]

That is another website on my to-do list: one that names and shames spyware developers who create these commits. Git blame writ large.

[easterncalculus]

Negative punishment will not work for this, you would be going after the symptom instead of the problem. Don't make it harder for people that write these changes, make it harder for people to force others to. There will always be another developer, and there's no guarantee you'll know their identities. If you're looking to bring attention and make a statement at the potential expense of others that's one thing, but practically speaking this approach can't work.

[fouric]

You want to shame developers for including "usage reporting", "automatic update[s]", and "crash reporting" in their software?