Getting popcon back in shape

[Aigars Mahinovs]

On 1/6/06, Matt Zimmerman <mdz at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> The problem of determining which packages are important to users is, I
> think, more complex for us than is allowed for by popcon's approach.  In
> general, genuine application use is more interesting than package
> installation and file access, and this is more difficult to measure.
> Surveys, while they have their own problem, would seem to give us more
> useful results.

How about a cron script that keeps daily records of atime of all files
in /usr/bin or something along those lines included and active by
default in dapper? Then after 10 Mb (compressed) of this info would be
accumulated, we could ask the user whether he would like to submit
that back so that Ubuntu can be improved further.

A more intrusive approach could also be provided - an applet that
tracks all mouse clicks and special key combinations in all apps,
recording sequences of commands done, changes in settings, ... (Of
course only as an opt-in)

I've read that MS has done similar studies with Office and that helps
them a lot now.

PS> Can someone please add my @gmail.com address to accepted from list
of this mailing list or at least start moderate it :P

--
Best regards,
    Aigars Mahinovs        mailto:aigarius at debian.org
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