Re: Friends-of-GNOME database [Re: Modifying GNOME-About to count users]

[John Williams <jwilliams business otago ac nz>]

On Tue, 2005-07-12 at 15:44 -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:

> I think two somewhat different things have gotten conflated here.
> I'm not sure I've completely followed all the threads of the 
> "GNOME-About" discussion, but it seems to have evolved from a discussion
> of some sort of automated ping to a way to allow users to register
> with GNOME.

It all started with trying to find a way to estimate the number of GNOME
users.  An automated ping is the best way, but is ethically dangerous.
An opt-in register is ethically fine, but sub-optimal for our purposes.
Also, we can do it right now, rather than later.  Plus, it can establish
a lower bound on the number of users, and seeing that number rise will
(hopefully!) be inspirational.