Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoostats, SoC 2011

[Alec Warner]

On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 5:05 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 7:45 AM, Thomas Kahle <tomka@g.o> wrote:
>> Sorry, but NO.  If you want you can make a big noise message that asks
>> users to install the cron-job but opt-out is not an option here.
>
> Well, that's up to the Council/Trustees ultimately, but opinions (and
> better still reasoning) are welcome since both would no-doubt want to
> reflect the will of the community (and whatever is legal in the
> jurisdictions that matter).

It doesn't take a council vote nor a trustees vote to add a package to
everyone's machine.

In the end I'd recommend just looking at the opt-in numbers. Is the
data useful from opt-in users?
If the answer is no, then we can always think up other ways to get
more users. Will auto-installs be on the list of ideas? You bet ;) But
I think we are putting the cart before the horse.

>
> One option that many distros employ is a forced opt-in/out decision.
> During the install process they simply ask the user, and they have to
> hit either yes or no to continue.  The reason most people don't opt-in
> is that they don't think about it, and this forces the issue.
>
> The Gentoo analogue would be to put something in make.conf or whatever
> that must be set one way or another.  Maybe have an opt-in use flag
> and an opt-out use flag and if you don't set either emerge just dies
> with a notice or something.  No doubt somebody could come up with a
> more elegant solution.

The stage3 tarball doesn't even come with a dhcp client; so I don't
really see how installing a stats client makes sense from the
standpoint of 'only what is necessary.' For many people, that is an
important part of Gentoo (cf. python3...)

Making emerge die unless you make a decision will probably break a
bunch of shit (plenty of people have automatic installs in some
fashion.) We would have to use an existing methodology to avoid
breaking them (PROPERTIES=interactive?)

>
> Maybe another line of discussion that could inform the debate is what
> the value of this information is?  For a company, knowing what
> packages are popular helps them to allocate resources.  Gentoo is a
> volunteer effort and devs allocate their effort based on personal
> preference, though perhaps some would care about package popularity to
> an extent.  So, we might not benefit to the same degree from this kind
> of information, since we can't crack the whip and force people to fix
> some broken package that is popular.

I think at present we don't know the informations value; that is part
of why considering opt-out is premature ;)

>
> Rich
>
>