Opt-in/out Telemetry / Usage Statistics

[abdullah]

Staring a thread to discuss creating a function that collects anonymous usage stats from FC users.

Aside from something like a counter that just counts downloads server side (and I mean just an int that gets incremented), anything with the words "automatic" "collect" "usage" "stats" will be met with big opposition.

Being a community driven project, I am not curious about the market penetration of FreeCAD or how the users see the "product", but about how it solves the challenges that this community chooses to address with it and how we might help each other to make it more useful.

In order to know what the community thinks about FreeCAD, what is useful or how it can be improved, I do not have to launch built-in telemetry or convince users to opt-in. It suffices to read the forum, read the feedback. The information comes to me in the most natural way, no need for gathering, AI processing/analysing and interpreting it. I do not have to interpret whether people spending more time in the sketcher is because it is their favourite tool or because I introduced so many bugs that they get stuck there more often. The community will tell us all in a clear and direct way

[user1234]

Hello!

Staring a thread to discuss creating a function that collects anonymous usage stats from FC users.
.....
Thoughts?

I also do not want this. This was the main reason why i changed from WIN7 to Linux. And if this function will be implemented, this should be an optional in.

Greetings
user

[kkremitzki]

On top of everything that's already been said here, we also have to consider GDPR compliance, which was not an issue when I did my analytics experiment last time.

[freedman]

this should be an optional in.

The op-in approach doesn't work, someone will just change it later. Not you guys, probably your kids.

I wouldn't be in favor of this. But I will bend over backwards to fill out usage, download info, anything that you want from this forum interface.

The whole concept of gathering data, most people say it's a slippery slope. I don't agree, there is nothing sloppy about it, it's a small step that continues forever and the next gathering concept builds on the facts of the first one. We see the results every days on the news but for some reason we don't think it will happen here. That's because you guys have morals and self respect, what about the next gen folks.

Imagine your worst experience here on the forum, put that person in charge of FreeCAD someday, do you want them to have data gathering.

[Kunda1]

The key word here is 'Opt-Out', y'all. Though I do acknowledge the high-emotions that this subject brings-up it's hard to read beyond certain words.
Maybe I'm biased because I know that FC doesn't have non-beneficent intentions.

Telemetry could be part of an infrastructure in place..for example (with permission) to auto-send crash-reports as described in:
issue #2731: Add exception stacktrace upload function
Breakpad (official link) Discussion thread: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=21421
LibreOffice is using this apparently: https://people.gnome.org/~michael/blog/ ... d-5-3.html

I shared this link above but I'll post it anyway....
The proposed json payload would liook something like:

Code: Select all

{
    "compiler": {
        "type": "GCC",
        "version": "5.4"
    },
    "cpu": {
        "architecture": "x86_64",
        "count": 4
    },
    "locale": {
        "language": "English",
        "region": "UnitedStates"
    },
    "opengl": {
        "glslVersion": "1.30",
        "renderer": "Mesa DRI Intel(R) Haswell Mobile ",
        "type": "GL",
        "vendor": "Intel Open Source Technology Center",
        "vendorVersion": "Mesa 12.0.6",
        "version": "3.0"
    },
    "platform": {
        "os": "linux",
        "version": "ubuntu-16.04"
    },
    "qtVersion": {
        "value": "5.9.0"
    },
    "screens": [
        {
            "dpi": 101,
            "height": 768,
            "width": 1366
        }
    ]
}

We could add OCC and pivy or even external workbenches.
Anyway, when the core devs weigh in and aren't fond of the idea, that sort of puts the kabosh on the whole idea. Nonetheless, a good spirited conversation is useful from time to time.

[triplus]

I would vote to remove Locale information from FreeCAD info. Other software like Firefox ask if you want to share your location. With FreeCAD info we just assume everybody is fine with sharing that.

As for Telemetry/Statistic. If somebody is interested in such info and would need it for whatever purpose. Ask. And lets see on how we could provide it. Instead of assuming it makes sense to just gather some Telemetry/Statistic for no apparent reason.

[yorik]

I also don't know what kind of useful information we could or should get, that could have an impact on development. Most used workbench? I guess we all know which one it would be (partdesign), what else? So it would indeed have very little use and a lot of negative impact.

The real interesting statistic I would like to see is how many people use FreeCAD. But to get a really faithful estimate would be quite intrusive, we should "monitor" when a person is using FreeCAD. I would certainly not like someone watching to know when I'm using a software or not.

And even so, how useful would it be to know how many FreeCAD users there are, apart from being good to our ego

[bill]

Relax folks, your information is not that interesting plus the (physical)operator of this and any bulletin/forum is gleaning loads more information. And you are probably not even slightly anonymous as you might think.

Web systems (and I can only speak for microsoft IIS; and I am not a fan of ms) on the server side have pre-filtering abilities. So regardless of your enviroment of choice such as PHP, and how much trust you place there; well, you should understand the rest. So then, if you are that worried about security I would recommend not visiting the forum, and/or for that matter unplug from THE NETWORK.

After not coding for 15 years, I built such a system 3 years ago; the same time user geant asks about the FORMDUMP.DLL(microsoft dev tool for dumping the contents of a html-form post) to which werner responded with something of the tune; u dont need it for freecad; when in fact I did, for development of a freecad-application-metric python module. Never fielded it partly in anticipated sediments expressed previously in this thread.

Additionally, it was built at a time when FC was a bit less tighter than present.

It had plenty of value/worth!

Dont remember all the details; but here goes.

Application-python-module, Application-config-file, LinuxOS/ApacheWebServer/mySQL backend

Application-python-module that could be called through out FC to post limited amounts of data such as a HTTPS/HTML-post:
-FreeCAD Info
-Content Code
-IDCodeHash
-Payload
-TimeStamp

This module could be used for the following:
-post warnings,error msgs, and/or exceptions raised during program execution back to a developer user account; essentially close-to-realtime
-post FC launch
-post WB launch
-post version information that would prompt user to possibility of an update
-etc, etc. etc. ...

The SQL on the backend supported:
-All the previous posted data naturally
-FC/WB/Macro developer logon
-Hashed USERNAME ( I come from a Comp/Network Security developer environment; like to hash possible risk factor)
-Hashed PASSWORD

Via Web Interface:
-Dev ability to view warn/err/excep occurances and apply code fixes
-Dev ability to REVEL in how many times their WB/Macro was being launched; great tool to provide enthusiam/motivation for a great effort
-FC could determine what WB are used most frequently--IE, the CORE workbench discussion issue

Via SQL Interface: Whatever additional query you care to MINE! Very BENIGN data set, but OH! so valuable.

Long story short, at the time, that werner comment disenchanted me so much, I ditched the effort.

[bill]

PS Everything has risk.

Its all about managing risk; in this case, the minimal-risk(please correct me here with concrete examples) is worth the reward!

As for the future/crystal-ball soothsaying, time deprecates/devalues, if not destroys the value of information/time-based-perishability.

Besides the database can be purged at a regular interval with NO consequences.

Its simply another tool.

[freedman]

Somewhere in the timeline of the computer industry there was code added to a program that gathered data about usage. That was the day that someone said "it's my program, I wrote it so I can do whatever I want to the folks that use it".
I hope FreeCAD never heads down that road. Most roads start as a path, we certainly have a path at this point.