[Qgis-developer] QGIS update available plugin and/or ping back plugin

[Vincent Picavet (ml)]

Hello,

On 03/08/2015 10:23, Richard Duivenvoorde wrote:
> In a separate thread, Neal raises the point below. Moving it to a
> separate thread here.
> 
> Nyal asks: "... On a semi-related theme, we really need a core "QGIS
> update available" plugin. I suspect there's a ton of users still on
> 2.8.0/.1/<2.8 just due to not knowing there's a new version out. This
> could also be really handy for tracking stats of users..."
> 
> @Nyall: we already have an menu item: Help/Check QGIS version
> But I just checked, and in 2.8.3 it says that I should update to 2.10,
> so I think that is more or less broken since we do LTR versions...

Repairing this feature, and maybe having an automated background check
at startup would be good for this feature.

> And we did have this ping back discussion earlier, resulting in "we
> cannot do it because of the privacy issues".
> 
> Though I'm pretty privacy-minded, I am actually in favour of a ping back!
> 
> Given the following plan, does that guarantee enough privacy for people
> who were against it earlier:
> 
> - during first creation of .qgis2 user folder (upon first installation)
> we generate some uuid (based on currentime+somerandom)
> - upon later startups QGIS fires a HTTP GET request to a webserver which
> contains this UUID + the language + current version used
> - this request is handled by a separate apache or nginx server which
> does nothing more then logging this, and returning the (for that branch)
> latest version. Which is checked for by QGIS
> - by simple analysing the logs (grepping) we can have some info about
> our user-base (number of installs given a period of time) and even a
> live 'currently QGISsing'-guess :-)
> 
> Can privacy concerning people live with this plan?

Not me.

Any personal information sent by the user should only be done on a
volontary basis.

I would agree with this if :
* This is optional
* This is not activated by default
* The installer could ask the user if he wants to send statistics to the
QGIS project, with a list of data items sent.

> As an argument to allowing these pingbacks, as we/I invest pretty much
> time in localisation around QGIS, it would make me feel better if I know
> that all this work is actually be used by some people :-)

User statistics are indeed very important. Privacy is just way more
important, especially in these troubled times. I do think we, as
opensource community members, and digital era citizens, have to show the
way. Do not ever do things users would consider evil without getting
their agreement.

Regards,
Vincent