On 1 December 2014 at 05:37, Matthias Runge <mrunge@matthias-runge.de> wrote:
On 01/12/14 13:10, Alec Leamas wrote:

>> So we come back to the question: is any number better than no number
>> at all?
>> Even to get a trend?
>>
> Yes, I think so. Even a bad number can be used for trends and comparisons.
>
> That said, let's not limit this discussion to the "download counter"
> concept. There are other approaches, perhaps some kind of reporting app
> which send reports on installed sw to a central server, like the abrt
> thing. Or something else, which I cannot imagine.

In the old days, we used to have a service like smolt, to collect
hardware data. The installer asked for participation in this service
after install. IMHO that was a service, reporting every month or so.


I retired the hardware data because so few people actually used it that statistically it was filled with more 'oddball' hardware (Gateway 2000's outnumbered Dell in 2008.)

 
Debian has popcon[1], to collect statistics.


What I found funny was that many of the people who complained to me over the years that Red Hat might use their computer data for some sort of nefarious data mining use the Debian popcorn left and right. When I brought up putting popcorn on fedora... they wouldn't use it because of their original worries about Red Hat being bought by Google. I don't know if this is common or my own filter of continually running into these people .. but I have the feeling we won't have good luck with any sort of data collection methods.
 
One could even argue: when fedora already knows, what I have installed,
it may be nice to get a reminder to update packages, when there is a
known security issue. Of course, that needs to be opt-in, but it may be
a nice service.

Matthias


[1] http://popcon.debian.org/



--
Stephen J Smoogen.