Their concerns aren't really valid. It's an entirely optional feature. There is no functional difference between being in the core and being a plugin. Someone who wants to violate exfiltration policies can still do so with maybe one extra step.
On a technical level there is no relevant difference but on a social level there well is, in my opinion.
The expectation is that plugins need to be activated explicitly and that do not get installed or activated automatically. Even stronger, a common impression about plugins is, that they are often a pain to install and get working. I know that this expectation has been violated occasionally in one form or another but I doubt that many people are aware of that or could even come up with examples.
Built-in features on the other hand are completely different. The usual experience is they get moved around, enabled, disabled willy nilly without notification or consent with every (unrelated) update. iTerm2 is not like that and George has done a fantastic job to build a ton of trust over decades, but I don't blame anyone not knowing that and being cautious.
I completely agree. We often forget it's not always about the technical details of the implementation. Its about the attitude of developers and their relationship with their users and those users expectations. Users are 100% correct to be skeptical or even worried when they hear "AI integration". Putting it into the "core" makes a clear statement about the projects intentions. The developer recognizes this by saying the plugin change was to put people "at ease".
The developer did listen and came up with a change. All the while enduring insults, threats, and lies directed at him in the GitLab thread and all over the internet. Yet you attack him [*] for being slightly emotional in his response this one time? Wow.
Speaking of attitude, iTerm2 is a gift, and some users (or maybe even non-users) appear to be in need of a reminding.
Right, there's no functional difference, but there certainly is a social and organizational difference: if a feature is provided as a plug-in, it makes it somewhat more difficult (and, importantly, clearly signals to the user that this is the case) for default-off to turn into default-on, or for optional to turn into required, neither of which is unheard of in modern software development.
