Consider:
"You're evil! Remove the phone home code from this module
 immediately unless you want to rot in hell for all
 eternity!"

I get fed up having to respond to this when people come out
with such unreasonable statements like this, so here is my
stock response to each of the arguments to why I should not
include phone home code in my distribution:


1) It's rude.

   No. The user is asked if they want to send any
   information. Their response is honored. The default
   value is "no" (do not phone home), and there is a
   timeout that also defaults to "no".


2) It's still rude.

   It's no more rude than the dozens of other distributions
   on CPAN that run unit tests that make network connections
   over the Internet without asking first. At least in my
   case the user is asked if they want to phone home first.


3) It will screw up automated stuff.

   No. It honors the AUTOMATED_TESTING environment
   variable, and also has a timeout that defaults to "no".


4) Build.PL and Makefile.PL shouldn't be scripts.

   What do you expect people to put in them other than a
   script? A pretty ASCII art picture maybe?


5) I don't want you to know my IP address.

   Then don't respond "yes" when asked if it's okay to send
   the information then.


6) I'll have to check the code to be sure it's safe.

   Why should you trust this code less than any other code
   written by other people just because it asks you if you
   would like to send some basic information to the author
   using an HTTP GET (the URL of which it clearly displays
   in the question/message)?


7) You can't possibly code defensively enough to make it
   always default to "no" and not phoning home.

   It is impossible to account for people overloading any
   or all parts modules that are used in the phone home,
   in the same way that it is impossible for me to know if
   someone has replaced the perl binary with a copy of lua
   or patched it to unlink random files from the file
   system, or overloaded ever core operator. I have
   however written the code to cope with all reasonable
   situations.


8) I bet people have only said you should remove the phone
   home code, and none said to keep it. You should therefore
   remove it.

   When council tax bands are reevaluated you only hear about
   the people who are not happy because they will have to
   pay more. That's because the people who benefit or don't
   mind usually don't feel the need to make their opinions
   known. Likewise in this situation. Plenty of people
   happily answer "yes" to allow phoning home. Do hear from
   them to tell me I should keep the phone home code? No,
   of course not.


9) I still don't agree. Phone home code is bad!

   Don't use this module and/or run the Build.PL script
   then.


10) I still don't agree. Phone home code is bad!

   Stop complaining. Other consenting adults make the
   decision to allow Build.PL to phone home, or not to
   phone home, and are able to do so without complaining.
   More over they're able to do this without trying to
   restrict how the author writes the software (which is
   free) or distributes it.


