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

[Alessandro Pasotti]

2015-08-03 12:39 GMT+02:00 Vincent Picavet (ml) <vincent.ml at oslandia.com>:

> 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
>
>

I fully agree with Vincent's opinion.

Regards.


-- 
Alessandro Pasotti
w3:   www.itopen.it
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