[tex-live] How many current TeX Live users are there?

Pander pander at users.sourceforge.net
Tue Apr 5 10:44:48 CEST 2011


On 2011-04-05 10:39, Zdenek Wagner wrote:
> 2011/4/5 Robin Fairbairns <Robin.Fairbairns at cl.cam.ac.uk>:
>> Pander <pander at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Does anyone know how many TeX Live users are out there?
>>
>> dunno
>>
>>> It would be difficult to combine the download statistics from all
>>> mirrors I assume or are these available (e.g. downloads per year).
>>
>> such a measure is bound to over-report: changes of isp and changes of
>> address within the same isp for desktops, laptops downloading from
>> different locations, mirrors sucking from master sites[*] could all
>> cause it.
>>
>> and then there's the simple tedium of writing a script that analyses it
>> all; there are thousands of downloads in my ftp, rsync and http logs
>> combined.
>>
>> finally, there's the business of collecting these reports from everyone
>> who offers tex live for download (which is probably the worst part...).
>>
>> i don't think it's a goer, to be honest.
>>
> Moreover, universities often provide network installation where one
> texmf tree is shared over NFS and Samba and they provide private
> mirror for their employees and students or just migrate the installe
> TeX Live to other computers. thus the number obtained can never be
> precise.
> 
>> robin

Would it be interesting to provide tlmgr and/or the installer with an
explicit (yet default yes preselected) question to anonymously report an
active installation (at installation time and e.g. each year after the
installation)?


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