Tracer Version(s)

2.6.0

Go Version(s)

go version go1.26.1 darwin/arm64

Bug Report

The OpenTelemetry implementation in dd-trace-go handles unsampled spans differently than the native Datadog tracer. The native tracer doesn't drop traces client-side (unless client-side stats computation is enabled), ensuring the trace agent always receives all traces and trace metrics are generated for 100% of generated traces. However, the OpenTelemetry implementation unconditionally drops unsampled spans (code), so they don't reach the trace agent, and trace metrics aren't generated out of them.

The OpenTelemetry SDK (the OTel implementation of the OTel API) drops unsampled traces client-side, but this is the Datadog implementation of the OpenTelemetry API, and it should match the native Datadog tracer contract.

Reproduction Code

No response

Error Logs

No response

Go Env Output

No response