Community Poll: Telemetry & Data Collection in VyManager

Hello VyProjects community,

⚠️ To discuss this topic, please go to our Github Discussions instead of the Discord general chat.
To let us know what you want: join our Discord community and choose your option in #polls.

We’ve been discussing the future of VyManager and how we can make it better for everyone. One topic that came up recently is optional, transparent telemetry – collecting basic, non‑sensitive usage statistics to help us understand how VyManager is used, where issues occur, and how we should prioritize development.

This is an important decision for an open‑source project, and we want your opinion before any code is written.

What we are considering

Opt‑in only – nothing is sent unless you explicitly allow it.

7‑day grace period – you can review exactly what is collected before any data is sent.

No sensitive data – we will never collect sensitive information like secrets, credentials, content of network packets, or full configurations.
At a maximum: some examples: amount of each interface type, amount of routes, amount of DHCP leases versus DHCPv6 leases, type (interface, route, firewall, service) of recent modifications (never full config contents!), error rate on each part within the configuration

Transparent – the exact data schema will be documented both in the panel and on GitHub. When we change what kind of data we want to collect, we'll give you time to decide, eventually with another 7-day grace period.

Purpose – understand which VyOS versions are used most, which features are heavily used or problematic, and how many active instances exist. This helps us fix bugs, improve performance, and build trust for new users

Why a poll?

We want to know how you feel about this. Some of us are strongly against any form of data collection, others see value in it. Rather than guessing, we ask the community to decide the direction.

Poll options

Option A – No telemetry at all
I do not want any form of usage data sent from VyManager, even with an opt‑in toggle.

Option B – Opt‑in, but I would keep it disabled
I accept that others may use it, but I personally would never enable it.

Option C – Opt‑in, and I would likely enable it
I would turn telemetry on, as long as it is transparent and collects nothing sensitive.

Option D – Opt‑in, and I would definitely enable it
I strongly support this – it will help the project grow and improve.

Option E – Default opt‑in with clear notice
I am comfortable with telemetry being on by default, as long as there is a one‑time notice and an easy way to turn it off.

[mrpops2ko]

i put that i would opt in and enable it but ideally what i would prefer is something like crash reports

for example i've got some bug(s) which are possibly conflicts between feature sets of vyos vs vymanager

it would be nice if instead of those just failing, the user was presented with a 'hey you got an error, or it looks like you might have a bug that is currently unsupported in vymanager.

click this link to upload data that could help the devs resolve it!'

and then just scrape either part or whole of the rule / area / bug that is happening if it can be minimised and if not then prompt the user potentially for more details

main point i think is getting more people to engage with the process in a hassle free way of diagnosing and highlighting those bugs / edge cases