1555328 - Persist the "upload enabled" status of Glean so that applications don't have to be as careful about setting it before initialization

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Data Platform and Tools :: Glean: SDK, defect, P3)

Description

[Michael Droettboom [:mdroettboom]]

:gfritsche wrote:

Can we have a follow-up bug on considering to make this setting sticky, so the "should be called at least once prior" requirement falls away? I don't remember exactly where our discussions went on this, but from the embedding products side, this seems like a footgun or "just one more thing to remember") that we might be able to hide away.

Comment 1

[Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter]]

(In reply to Michael Droettboom [:mdroettboom] from comment #0)

:gfritsche wrote:

Can we have a follow-up bug on considering to make this setting sticky, so the "should be called at least once prior" requirement falls away? I don't remember exactly where our discussions went on this, but from the embedding products side, this seems like a footgun or "just one more thing to remember") that we might be able to hide away.

Instead of us recording this, what about making the upload enabled a mandatory initialize parameter? Otherwise we'd end up recording something that the product will record itself.

Comment 2

[Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter]]

Instead of persisting the status, which would still leave the case of starting the application with glean for the first time uncovered, what about requiring the product to tell us the initial state through initialize?

Comment 3

[Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche]]

(In reply to Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter] - Out until 01/July from comment #2)

Instead of persisting the status, which would still leave the case of starting the application with glean for the first time uncovered, what about requiring the product to tell us the initial state through initialize?

Ok, how about we run through how an integration could look like in an app, based on how we know behavior is in firefox:

1. on first app launch/init, we shouldn't send data yet (as we couldn't give the user an opportunity to opt out yet).
2. after some time, the app can enable upload
3. after this, there might be some times where disabling/enabling of upload happens through the user changing application settings

From here i assume we need:

• default to upload disabled - covers 1)
• we need a Glean SDK function to enable/disable upload - covers 2) & 3)

How does that sound?

We should also probably double-check with mobile app engineers from 1-2 products how that sounds to them. The needs and actual integrations may be different from what we're used to.

Comment 4

[Michael Droettboom [:mdroettboom]]

Attachment: Lightweight proposal

Comment 5

[Michael Droettboom [:mdroettboom]]

What should be the next step on this? I think the comments in the proposal have been addressed, but I'm not sure how to select a way forward. Send the proposal around to a broader group?

Comment 6

[Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter]]

(In reply to Michael Droettboom [:mdroettboom] from comment #5)

What should be the next step on this? I think the comments in the proposal have been addressed, but I'm not sure how to select a way forward. Send the proposal around to a broader group?

It might be worth to check in with Sebastian and Jeff Boek about this too, if they have input/opinions. After that, it might be worth to organize a meeting (maybe they can join, if they wanted?) to focus on this and make a decision!

Comment 7

[Michael Droettboom [:mdroettboom]]

Moving this back to incoming - I think we need a re-triage of how necessary it is...

Comment 8

[Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter]]

The application would still need to persist the state of this. So we'd end up with two states: one from Glean, one from the application. This would lead to some grey areas when it comes to decide who's right :)

Since the problem (from comment 0) is really requiring setUploadEnabled to be called before init, I filed bug 1591976 to change the initialize method.