Gnome 2.0 phoneing "home"

[textshell neutronstar dyndns org]

Hallo,

following the recent discussion about yelp and stylesheets I think it's
importent to remind people, that is is not Ok for an desktop to requiere
internet access, or just fetch stuff from the internet without the user
noticeing.

This is exactly the behavior that gives many users (at least in Germany) the
creeps.

	- Many people don't have permanent internet connection, many have dial
	on demand. Most of us have to pay internet access per minute or per
	volume.
	
	- It look much like phoneing home. So we look like spyware or suspisous
	Microsoft stuff. And it doesn't help that sourcecode is availible, no
	one of the just user can use it.
	
	- It's in many places a privacy problem. Esp. if the files are from
	untrusted sources.
	
I think we should think hard about letting the core desktop do anything like
that *without* asking the user and explaining what is to be done and an security
assessment(known good distribution sites that don't track users).

We should not do as Microsoft and ignore privacy and security conserns, just to
make the dektop a tiny bit easier! We have some responsibility to keep linux
better security and privacywise than windows.

That ideally means *no* network access that is not predicable by the novice user
should be allowed by programs of the core desktop! But this is be beyond 2.0.0.
But i think this needs fixing ASAP.

Yeah, it's late, I should have said this much earlier, but it _has_ to be said.


Regards,
	Martin H.