I'm not a big fan of any kind of "phone home" software unless it is absolutely necessary for the install itself or the functionality of the program (this last would be things like p2p apps, MORPGs, etc).

In other words, if it is part of the utility of the software, then it is regarded with far less suspicion than anything else.

It seems to me that the obvious place to collect downloading statistics would be on the CPAN mirrors themselves -- but this would require statistics aggregation module on each mirror that would forward the data along to a central database. Whether that will ever happen, who knows, but that seems to be the logical place to look.

That way it's invisible, in a non-creepy way, to the end user.

I personally understand the benign intent of your desire, but the old saw 'perception is reality' applies here.

Matt

In reply to Re: Gathering module usage statistics by mojotoad
in thread Gathering module usage statistics by Juerd

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