A question about installations

[Bret Busby]

On 19/7/23 21:31, Liam Proven wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Jul 2023 at 11:26, Bret Busby <bret at busby.net> wrote:
>>
>> Having just read an article by Liam Proven, about the numbers or
>> proportions of operating systems installations, including googlelinux
>> (commonly named chromedOS, I think), published at The Register
> 
> Oh, good stuff. :-)
> 
> FWIW: there is not one "Google Linux".
> 
> ChromeOS is so called because it's the OS on ChromeBooks and ChromeBoxes.
> 
> It is not the one the company uses internally.
> 
> That used to be Ubuntu in a form called GooBuntu but now it has been
> replaced by Rodete.
> 
> https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/developers-practitioners/how-google-got-to-rolling-linux-releases-for-desktops
> 
> It's short for Rolling Debian Testing.
> 
>> So, the question is, do Ubuntu and Linux Mint (and, any other Ubuntu
>> derivatives) keep statistics of the number of installations,of each of
>> their variants (eg, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Edubuntu, etc, and, Linux
>> Mint, Linux Mint Mate, Linux Mint Cinnamon, Linux Mint XFCE, etc)
> 
> No. Not that they are public about, anyway. ;-)
> 
>> I do not remember seeing the question being asked, during
>> either the installation process, or, the version upgrade process?
> 
> It used to be. Debian still asks about its "popularity contest".
> https://popcon.debian.org/
> 
> The controversy is over Fedora introducing just this:
> 
> https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/10/fedora_privacy_telemetry/
> 
> People _really_ do not like this, as a rule.
> 

Okay - I seem to have misconstrued the survey nature - I had had the 
impression that it was to count the number of variant operating system 
installations, rather than the number of installations, or, usage, of 
individual application packages.

One significant difference, I think, between the Debian and the Fedora 
methods of obtaining the statistics, is that the former is/was "opt-in", 
and, the latter, is (proposed to be?) opt-out.

I have a great problem with opt-out stuff, which uses the army method of 
volunteering - "You are volunteered; we have volunteered you", as, as a 
person who has undergone genealogical DNA testing, solely for the sake 
of genealogical research, having found that a company that performed the 
testing (of the samples submitted to that particular company), changed 
the terms and conditions, without notice, and, volunteered the DNA that 
was submitted solely for genealogy analysis for its test subjects, to be 
misused for investigative forensic analysis by "law enforcement" 
agencies, on an "opt-out" basis, which was discovered some years after 
the betrayal; and, for anyone who say that crimes should be solved, 
"whatever it takes", and, that "the end justifies the means", as 
published, by a respected genetic genealogist, on one genealogy mailing 
list, in which I am involved,  the company that is notorious for having 
done this, in the misuse of its genealogical DNA test samples, has led 
to the conviction of women, for the felony (in the USA), of having 
suffered stillbirths of children. In some barbaric countries, like the 
USA, it is a felony for a woman to have a miscarriage or stillbirth, 
and, in the UK, it has been reduced to a minor offence, punishable only 
by a fine, rather than imprisonment. Where the misuse of genealogical 
DNA samples, is involved in crimes against humanity, such as committed 
by "law enforcement" agencies, I vehemently oppose "opt-out" 
propositions, especially, with genealogical DNA testing and analysis 
companies.

So, I do not like the concept of "opt-out" things.

"seno ekto gamat". (The published spellings, apparently, vary)

Thus do I prefer opt-in providing of information, such as the method of 
obtaining statistics, as was applied by Debian.

And, going back to the issue in my initial post in this thread, I 
suggest that it would be a good idea, for Linux distribution entities 
(?), such as Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc, to poll users, in the 
installation and distribution upgrade (in the course of this thread, I 
have found that Linux Mint 21.2 has now been released) processes, to 
count the numbers of installations of each variant and version of each 
distribution.

Such a comparison, published (for example, monthly), could be interesting...

..
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
(UTC+0800)
..............