Re: Package statistics by downloads

Boyuan Yang <[email protected]> Tue, 22 Apr 2025 19:34:42 -0400

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.www
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Hi,

在 4/22/2025 3:33 PM, Erik Schulz 写道:
> I'm interested in package popularity. I'm aware of popcon
> (https://popcon.debian.org/), but I'm more interested in actual
> downloads.
> 
> Do the debian mirrors track unique downloads (e.g. by hashed IP
> address), and if no, why not? I can understand the privacy argument,
> but arguably package downloads aren't particularly revealing? And data
> could be aggregated daily, thus limiting exposure.

You are writing to the debian-www mailing list, which is dedicated to
website development and not about popcon. Since this is a generic question
aroud Debian development, please redirect your question to
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/ .

Side note on my personal opinion: No one in Debian seems wanted to collect
such information. Even if such data collection is to be collected, one has
to determine where to collect that data from, either from the downloading
server or from the user.

* If the data is to be collected from the user OS, it will likely face a
greater backslash on privacy concerns compared to the current popcon design.

* If the data is to be collected from the downloading server, that is not
possible -- traditionally Debian did not have control over most of the
package downloading servers (a.k.a. the "repository mirrors"), and in modern
times deb.debian.org is sponsored by CDN companies which are also difficult
to collect per-package download statistics from.

Disclaimer: I never worked on popcon or related fields. Please redirect
your further questions to the debian-devel mailing list.

Thanks,
Boyuan Yang

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