[tex-live] TL 13 -- how many maintained installations are there?

Joachim Schrod jschrod at acm.org
Wed Apr 16 01:14:46 CEST 2014


On 04/15/14 23:11, AW wrote:
> Am Dienstag, 15. April 2014, 18:07:30 schrieb Karl Berry:
>> My basic question is, supposing that a number was collected somehow,
>> what could one do with it?  Given that we know in advance that the
>> number will not in any way reflect the actual number of users or usage.
>> I mean, say we get a number of 1,234 in, say, three months.  Then after
>> another three months, we get 2,345.  What does this tell you?  Exactly
>> nothing, as far as I can see.  It says nothing about the number of
>> people using TeX Live (much less TeX), or the number of people who
>> installed TeX Live, or anything else.  So what's the point?
>> 
>> Anyway, I think TL is the wrong place to collect such information, even
>> if there were a reason to collect it.  Years ago, Peter Flynn (and I)
>> put some work into creating a web form where TeX users could submit
>> however much or little information they wished.  We never brought it to
>> fruition, because there seemed no point in collecting information which
>> had no apparent use.
>> 
>> karl
> 
> If there were a package submitted to each tex-live installation only once and 
> during the first update (this package would not be updated itself, of course), 
> we could count on how many computers somebody updates a tex-live installation, 
> which is a strong hint that this installation is being used. 

How do you count that first update? Updates are done via the CTAN
mirror network, where hundreds of systems are on. There is no
central place where you can count any installation of a package,
and that's by design.

	Joachim

PS: For the record, and for Phil: I'm also strongly against
phone-home software, and I will stand up against any infrastructure
that collects such information. No system (CTAN or other) where I
have sysadmin rights or where I'm involved will be misused in such
a way. Civility keeps me from further comments about Phil's opinion
about our surveillance state and its positive acceptance.

-- 
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Joachim Schrod, Roedermark, Germany
Email: jschrod at acm.org




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