[Qgis-developer] Funding projects

[Richard Duivenvoorde]

On 17-10-16 09:53, Matthias Kuhn wrote:
>> * a list of current crowd funding projects and their funding progress
>> > * a panel for us to directly send notifications to users e.g. 'QGIS
>> > 2.14.7 is out, please upgrade!'
> That's already in place. Information is read from
> https://ubuntu.qgis.org/version.txt
> 
> It could be improved to fetch different files based on LTR/Non-LTR.
> 
>> > * links for funding and sponsoring QGIS
> In general I am in favor of adding all this to the welcome page. It can
> be used to unobtrusively raise awareness and it's easy to disable if
> some people don't like it.

My 2ct:

I still find it strange that we are allowed to try to retrieve
version.txt without notice, given some time ago when we had the idea to
do an anonymous ping-back to have a clue about users/downloads, and we
were heavily criticized for that idea...
Myself I already had some practical problems with the version.txt. In a
school/organisation which is not 'able' to upgrade, you every time see
the message: "You can upgrade!..." but they can't and shouldn't...
Another issue I saw when you start up a centrally installed QGIS as new
user you get an error because QGIS tries to retrieve version.txt but is
not able because there is not proxy defined yet...

To make myself even more clear: I'm in favor for both
- QGIS pinging back (and give us some anonymous info about OS,
installer, use, version, userhash etc)
- the use of news feeds like Mathias proposes (but please let it be rst
and easily translatable)

But ONLY after(!) a clear 'YES' by the user, in which he/she gives a
fiat for sending and receiving such info... I think the average QGIS
user is OK with it if we make it clear enough that for the project it is
important to have insight in such info.

I would favor opt-in and not opt-out.

Regards,

Richard