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> Some of the times it's to make the product better, or better targeted. Homebrew lead maintainer here. This is exactly why we do it. To repeat myself from bel

> Some of the times it's to make the product better, or better targeted. Homebrew lead maintainer here. This is exactly why we do it. To repeat myself from below: we're chronically understaffed and underfunded. > Furthermore, now that you know, for brew specifically, will you opt out? It's worth noting: if everyone who uses a niche piece of software opt-out when it breaks we'll look at our analytics and likely remove it from Homebrew instead of fixing it. This may be unfair but given the amount of work: we need ways to prioritise. Analytics have helped us do that so we can prioritise fixes on things that are critical for many people.

quesera 10y ago
You do not need telemetry from everyone to make informed decisions like this. If just 1% of users opt-in to telemetry, you would have more than enough data for a representative sample set. This is the whole point. You can do the right thing without any loss of data usefulness. So why persist in doing the wrong thing??
- tn6o 10y ago
  And then the 1% will start complaining. "Why me?" The team behind Brew is doing a great job and if analytics can help them do a better job, then be it. Nobody is forcing you to use it and opting out is simple enough.
Tepix 10y ago
Does it have to be Google, the company that already sucks up the most information about pretty much everyone on the internet? Why don't you send the data to your own machines?
- mikemcquaid 10y ago
  We don't have our own machines that are capable of handling this. If you're offering to host them for us for at least two years for free: get in touch.
  - justinclift 10y ago
    Email sent. :)
    - hueving 10y ago
      Well now we'll see if the cost excuse was just a smokescreen I suppose.
      - mikemcquaid 10y ago
        It's the cost of running the servers, the experience and time to run the servers and the time to adjust our analytics code to use the new system (which I'm willing to do). Additionally, this (kind) offer is pointing to other organisations that may be able to host the servers and discussing potential solutions to the other options. It's not a slam-dunk by any means. This is all done in my free time so I don't need an excuse to do or not do any of this.
      - justinclift 10y ago
        Hmmm.... probably better to see how it turns out before jumping to conclusions. :) From initial discussion with Mike, there are two parts that would be needed for a (self hosted) setup: a) The hosting itself (this is something I can likely help with) b) Setup and ongoing management of Piwik. This isn't a skill set I have (nor am interested in). However I'm generally thinking the Homebrew Community is big enough to rustle up at least a few people with the right skill set for getting this done (and keeping it done :>). Trying to get both hosting + Piwik setup/mgmt from the same set of people may be a tall order, so doing them separately is probably more achievable. As a data point, this kind of approach - sponsored hosting/hw/similar + volunteers to look after Community infra - is used successfully in other projects. PostgreSQL is a good example. Can't really think of any obvious reasons it wouldn't work for Homebrew too. ;)

quesera 10y ago

You do not need telemetry from everyone to make informed decisions like this. If just 1% of users opt-in to telemetry, you would have more than enough data for a representative sample set. This is the whole point. You can do the right thing without any loss of data usefulness. So why persist in doing the wrong thing??

tn6o 10y ago
And then the 1% will start complaining. "Why me?" The team behind Brew is doing a great job and if analytics can help them do a better job, then be it. Nobody is forcing you to use it and opting out is simple enough.

Tepix 10y ago

Does it have to be Google, the company that already sucks up the most information about pretty much everyone on the internet? Why don't you send the data to your own machines?

mikemcquaid 10y ago
We don't have our own machines that are capable of handling this. If you're offering to host them for us for at least two years for free: get in touch.
- justinclift 10y ago
  Email sent. :)
  - hueving 10y ago
    Well now we'll see if the cost excuse was just a smokescreen I suppose.
    - mikemcquaid 10y ago
      It's the cost of running the servers, the experience and time to run the servers and the time to adjust our analytics code to use the new system (which I'm willing to do). Additionally, this (kind) offer is pointing to other organisations that may be able to host the servers and discussing potential solutions to the other options. It's not a slam-dunk by any means. This is all done in my free time so I don't need an excuse to do or not do any of this.
    - justinclift 10y ago
      Hmmm.... probably better to see how it turns out before jumping to conclusions. :) From initial discussion with Mike, there are two parts that would be needed for a (self hosted) setup: a) The hosting itself (this is something I can likely help with) b) Setup and ongoing management of Piwik. This isn't a skill set I have (nor am interested in). However I'm generally thinking the Homebrew Community is big enough to rustle up at least a few people with the right skill set for getting this done (and keeping it done :>). Trying to get both hosting + Piwik setup/mgmt from the same set of people may be a tall order, so doing them separately is probably more achievable. As a data point, this kind of approach - sponsored hosting/hw/similar + volunteers to look after Community infra - is used successfully in other projects. PostgreSQL is a good example. Can't really think of any obvious reasons it wouldn't work for Homebrew too. ;)