Dear friends, > > It'd be interesting to know how many active Debian systems there are out > > there! > > Me too. There was some discussion on debian-private a few months ago > about writing a package that would collect stats about the systems > it was installed on - and send them via e-mail to a central server that > would summarize them. Of primary interest would be what packages were > installed. It might be nice to collect info on the number of users, > and what types of hardware is being used. > > Of course, there is some danger in doing this. In particular, the > information could be used to detect security vulnerabilities (I'm > going to have to address this with dwww too). > > There is also the confidentiality aspect: I wouldn't want the information > published in a raw non-summarized format - since that might be used > by commercial types to target me in some marketing database. > > A "dfeedback" package would be a nice little project for someone to > tackle, if they are comfortable with the issues. Having some statistics > would definitely make it easier for people to make business decisions > related to Debian products and marketing. I'm also interested in seeing > how many people have dwww installed. :-)
I'd be careful on the way you do this. I too wouldn't mind knowing how many ppl use Debian but I would certainly not like emails to be sent with details of what I have installed on my system (specially if I do not know they are being sent and what info is being sent). An alternative would be to have a registration package that would allow those who *wish* to register to do so easily and as securely as possible. Just a thought... Dave -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
