On 10/5/06, Max Spevack <mspevack@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 5 Oct 2006, Josh Boyer wrote: > No, it's not. DHCP, NAT, proxies, etc. all make "unique" IP addresses a > horrible metric. In some cases, you get a single IP address for a > number of different machines. In others, you get two IP addresses for > the same machine. That's true, it will not be perfect by any means. > Yes, counting IP addresses will give you a metric. I just don't think > that metric is good for much because you still don't know how many > machines really have Fedora installed. Is it better than nothing? I > don't know. It gets you a pile of data, which can be analyzed and from which value can be extracted.
As long as you put in error bar estimates on what you are analyzing. When I was collecting numbers for RH Marketing.. the big problem I had was educating people that the numbers I gave were not absolutes and had errors involved on it. Not knowing that there are estimates in the numbers were causing problems where website growth was occuring in certain countries and such. The issue with any of the tracking schemes is working out where you are not violating a persons privacy. A person who is doing updates on the internet is sort of making an agreement that they can be counted.. but it may not be one that 99% of the people doing it realize. [The remaining 1% either dont care or use Tor or something to mask themselves.] To make it work you need to make an agreement with people. A simple choice would be to put in a firstboot page in FC7. State basically what Greg did why we would like to track certain information and how it is important for future of Fedora. Then if they agree to it, then send out a webcookie for the machine that is made from a SHA1 hash of some amount of random data. Put that data also into a yum plugin that sends the data as a cookie that is in the yum sned to the master server. This allows you to collect a certain amount of data and clear out some of the issues about dhcp, etc. People who do not want to participate don't put the cookie in their send, those that do can give some information that isnt too privacy threatening. [ The too is meant to cover people who believe that there is absolute right to all privacy.]
It's certainly better than having *no data*. Bottom line -- in th FC6 timeframe, any metric gathering will be imperfect, and feel like a hack. So we pick the hack that won't also anger people, and we do it. -- Max Spevack + http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MaxSpevack + gpg key -- http://spevack.org/max.asc + fingerprint -- CD52 5E72 369B B00D 9E9A 773E 2FDB CB46 5A17 CF21 _______________________________________________ fedora-advisory-board mailing list fedora-advisory-board@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-advisory-board
-- Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice" _______________________________________________ fedora-advisory-board mailing list fedora-advisory-board@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-advisory-board _______________________________________________ fedora-advisory-board-readonly mailing list fedora-advisory-board-readonly@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-advisory-board-readonly
