Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Andrew <afrayedknot AT thefrayedknot.armory.com>]

> 
> I have been a relatively quiet user of sourcemage for quite a while now.
> I have 4 machines happily running it, including a departmental
> server.
> 
> The rating system mentioned is very interesting.  I dislike using the
> number of times it is downloaded, but this raising a possibility, that
> I want to put out there even if everyone says horrible idea we won't
> do it.
> 
> Question: How popular is each package?  On what fraction of machines
> is a particular package running(maybe broken down by version)?  This
> might be useful information not just for games, but for those gurus, and
> project leaders who have to allocate time and resources on different
> problems.
> 
> Possible Solution: If it is possible to keep track of what has been cast,
> can we keep track of what has been dispelled also?
> 
> Obviously a guru looking to fix a bug should start with a package 
> used by 80% of the machines than a bug in a package that is only used 
> by 8% of the machines, unless there is some more pressing reason (like
> their personal machine is one of the 8%...)
> 
> Anyway this may be too big brother-ish, and might require too much
> processing and communication from a central server, but just a thought,
> as some of the packages I might be willing to try out if everyone else is
> running them..  Keep up the good work everyone, as I am proud of the 
> work you have put in.
> 

I think its a good idea so long as its kept on a volunteer only basis
and that we do everything possible to anonymize who sends the data. I
think a while ago we had an idea similar to this, but more for recording
the results of automated build testing so we'd have an idea how often
something built or failed to build, but thats a slightly different
problem. What we could do is have each user who wanted to participate
signup and they'll be given a unique identifier, then they can submit
their listing as often as they wish with that identifier (so we can
invalidate their previous submission). The format could be their
/var/state/sorcery/packages file or something, that at least specifies
whats currently on the system which i think is better than if someone
installs something, doesnt like it and removes it. If a file sent to
us too old we can invalidate it. It could be just a static html page
with the number of times something is installed and the number of total
entries we have to go from.

Although maybe the whole unique id thing would be too much of a barrier of
entry, Im just anxious of someone requesting the users who are using some
piece of software so they can go after them for possibly pirating it or
something, or maybe using something that prohibited in their country.

-Andrew

PS Wow, a departmental Harvard Med School server! Our code, in Harvard, cool! 
:-)