[Squeakmap] Statistics

Hernan Tylim htylim at yahoo.com.ar
Mon Aug 16 23:24:57 UTC 2004


Hi Lex,


> "Hernan Tylim" <htylim at yahoo.com.ar> wrote:
> > 	What do you think about keeping a downloads counter per Package
> > release on Squeakmap?  I know that it wouldn't be accurate 
> because of
> > the local cache on each client. But it will give as at least a lower
> > bound for measuring the use of a given package. 
> 
> 
> Yeah, it's interesting to track.  SqueakSource does this, by the way. 
> If you host your package on SqueakSource, and put the entry on
> Squeakmap, then you can get download counts.

I didn't know. Thanks for pointing it out.

> 
> Note that it's still not a lower bound.  I know that I 
> reinstall Squeak
> with moderate frequency and in multiple directories, and thus I have
> still downloaded packages multiple times even though SqueakMap has a
> built-in cache.

Yes, of course you are right. But even though I would really like it to
have it. For example, the other day I published KeyBinder and I wanted
to know if there were reaction to the [ANN] on squeak-dev. With this
kind of statistics I would had know if people were starting to
installing it.


> Debian has a take on this issue.  :)  They have a "popularity 
> contest". 
> Users can, at their choice, install the popularity contest package on
> their machine and thus participate in the contest.  If you install the
> package, then it will periodically contact a central site 
> with a list of
> the packages you have installed.  Using this information, the central
> site can determine the *percentage* of users who have a particular
> package installed on their machine.  You can then extrapolate 
> from this
> number to however many Debian users you think there are in the world
> (not a trivial question itself...), to find out how many people are
> using any particular package.
> 
> It's not perfect.  People can rig the votes if they want.  A package
> might be installed on people's machines, but not be getting 
> used.  Users
> who take part in the popularity contest may not be 
> representative of the
> whole set of Debian users.  But, overall, it seems more accurate that
> simply counting downloads.
> 
>	http://popcon.debian.org/

This seems really interesting. Maybe we can start with simple counters
and later improve on it. What do you think?

Regards,
Hernán




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