Qt 5.13 Might Add QTelemetry For Opt-In Anonymous Data Collection

The next release of the Qt5 tool-kit might introduce a potentially controversial module to facilitate anonymous data collection of Qt applications.

The addition of Qt Telemetry has been under code review since last September. There was some reviews taking place and code revisions happening but since November that review dried up.

QTelemetry is self-described as:

This is a work-in-progress project to create a telemetry library for various Qt applications. The library linked to Qt application allows to collects usage data from the application's users. This data could be used to improve application user experience. The idea is to collect anonymous data only, i.e. there is no way to map the collected data to any user identity. The feature is opt-in and collected data will be totally transparent to the user.

With the feature freeze for Qt 5.13 slated to go into effect on 1 February, the discussion around this telemetry support is back to being active.

On the Qt development list (sadly, the mailing list archives are still broken, thus no links) the QTelemetry discussion has been rejuvenated as a result of the upcoming feature freeze. At this stage it's looking like the code might not be merged even as a technology preview "TP" due to some outstanding issues from a technical perspective. It still needs to clear a final (API focused) review, but we'll see by the end of the month if this opt-in telemetry support will be added to the tool-kit for Qt 5.13.

Qt 5.13 will start its feature freeze in February, the Qt 5.13 Alpha by mid-February and a beta release by the end of that month. The Qt Company is hoping to ship this post-LTS tool-kit release around 21 May.