thoughts on LWN "how many Fedora users are there"

[Les Mikesell]

On Fri, 2006-10-13 at 08:51, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> Les Mikesell wrote:
> 
> > Yes, that's why I said 'add a repository' above.  If you have
> > a few reliable machines that you control, don't use any others
> > as mirrors.  It shouldn't be a big load to serve one file
> > that changes once a month - and it gives the users an easy
> > way to opt out if they feel that being counted violates
> > their privacy.  My personal feeling is that as long as everyone
> > knows the result it is not an issue for me.  I might have a
> > problem with it if some other group collected my information
> > and withheld it from everyone else.
> 
> I dont see the advantage of using a specific repository instead of just 
> getting the logs from the mirrors on the package update hits they get. 
> They already are syncing gigabytes of package updates.

There are 2 advantages.  First, you can control what machines
act as mirrors and thus not have to arrange anything with
other parties to get access to the logs.  Second, it gives
the individual user a way to opt out by removing that
repository from their list.   A side effect is that you
would not be able to collate data on what packages users
have installed.  Is that something you want?

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell at gmail.com