Tracking the number of downloads

[Scott Haneda]

On Oct 24, 2010, at 2:43 AM, Marko Käning wrote:

>> track-stats {
>> 	option-1
>> 	option-2
>> 	option-3
>> }
> Yep, that sounds interesting, Sott, but more simple proxy log filtering would count everything and could therefore probably more precise and also require no end-user interaction. Here you force the installing user to decided whether he wants to allow talkback for a specific port. This could certainly be handled by a global setting for port, but still…
> 
> I think one would have to really compare the pros and cons carefully before putting extra effort into extending the ports command itself with functionality for this purpose.

I agree, there are better and simpler ways.  We have had these talks before.  If list searching (not a failure of MacPorts, just lists archives in general) were not so slow, I would look for the archives.  At any rate, the problems are mostly around privacy and not so much technology issues.  It's hard to make everyone happy and many are not going to want this data out there, no matter how disassociated from the end user it may be.

Since tracking was not in MP on day one, to add it in will come with some resistance from users of various opinions.  I figured, with the methods I proposed, it would put the power in the port makers hands, and the stats being sent in would be in the end users hands.

There are many other ways, I could see an interactive method being much better, but with no interactive features to MP while in the shell so far, I don't think it is something high on the way MP is supposed to work scale.
-- 
Scott (* For off-list contact, replace talklists@ with scott@ *)