Hi Noah Slater wrote: > On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 10:00:04PM +0100, markus schnalke wrote: >> I know it is not possible to _know_ the real percentage of uses which >> submit popcon stats of all users. But I want to ask for guesses, >> because more oppinions do likely improve the result. > > [..] is like this famous old problem: Nobody was > permitted to see the Emperor of China, and the question was, What is the > length of the Emperor of China's nose? [..]
I am writting a paper on popcon (ranking package usage), which isn't finished yet. However I have already identified the following bias: popcon bias ----------- **popularity-contest isn't part of any task (but prompted by D-I, since Etch). Therefore it is unlikely to be active on system installed using debootstrap (xen-create-image, etc..) **Votes are purges after 23days of inactivity. * Popcon statistics combines Old-Stable, Stable, Testing and Unstable... and maybe some Debian-derivatives. user/sysadmin bias ------------------ * Installing popularity-contest is optional. * Some system are unproperly configured and can't submit their popcon (missing http proxy ; smtp server is wrong or blocked by their ISP). Especially when people are travelling. * People deploying Debian in large companies usually disable popcon. * Security concerns (Do you think that people who install security audit tools, like nessus, will submit popcon?). * ISPs and hosting companies disables popcon by default. Franklin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
