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Posted to general@incubator.apache.org by Marshall Schor <ms...@schor.com> on 2007/05/02 23:05:26 UTC
counting downloads
We're curious to see how many downloads we're getting, perhaps sorted by
ip number or who's downloading (I realize that would need be
"volunteered" information).
Do other projects have a good way to track this? I know we could pull
the logs for the p.a.o webserver and grep through them looking for
things, but I'm wondering if there's something we can put on our
download page that users would click on that would count things?
-Marshall Schor
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Re: counting downloads
Posted by robert burrell donkin <ro...@gmail.com>.
On 5/3/07, Danny Angus <da...@apache.org> wrote:
> On 5/2/07, Garrett Rooney <ro...@electricjellyfish.net> wrote:
>
> > > Do other projects have a good way to track this? I know we could pull
> > > the logs for the p.a.o webserver and grep through them looking for
> > > things, but I'm wondering if there's something we can put on our
> > > download page that users would click on that would count things?
>
> James uses google analytics. We currently count the hits to the
> download cgi page, which is probably over generous, but you can put
> google javascript on the links to the files themselves, we just
> haven't done it.
i'm going to need to create download pages for the incubator. this
isn't one of my personal itches and i would need to research the
analytics-foo. but if someone wants to create a JIRA with the required
javascripts, i'll take a look at including it.
any volunteers?
- robert
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Re: counting downloads
Posted by Danny Angus <da...@apache.org>.
On 5/2/07, Garrett Rooney <ro...@electricjellyfish.net> wrote:
> > Do other projects have a good way to track this? I know we could pull
> > the logs for the p.a.o webserver and grep through them looking for
> > things, but I'm wondering if there's something we can put on our
> > download page that users would click on that would count things?
James uses google analytics. We currently count the hits to the
download cgi page, which is probably over generous, but you can put
google javascript on the links to the files themselves, we just
haven't done it.
d.
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Re: counting downloads
Posted by Luciano Resende <lu...@gmail.com>.
Thanks Dan, indeed, as Tuscany is still under incubation, mirrors and other
things won't apply.
Did anybody ever created a script to parse the logs and provide totals ?
On 5/2/07, Daniel Kulp <da...@iona.com> wrote:
>
> On Wednesday 02 May 2007 18:43, Garrett Rooney wrote:
> > The mirror system makes this an essentially unsolvable problem. Not
> > to mention the fact that you have no clue if people are actually
> > getting the code from one of our mirrors at all, they could get it
> > from a linux distribution, or any number of other repackagers. On top
> > of that, you can't correlate back to an individual person, so you
> > don't know if you're getting one guy downloading it more than once
> > because he's accidentally deleted it...
>
> Except you forget one detail: incubator artifacts don't go to the mirror
> system. (Which, again, I think is silly. Part of being in the
> incubator is to learn about apache processes. One of those should be
> the mirror system.)
>
> To answer the question: all the logs are available on
> people.apache.org:/x1/logarchive/people
> You can parse them an pull out any information you want. Just keep in
> mind that after you graduate, all warnings about the mirrors do apply,
> so don't get used to having the download information.
>
>
> --
> J. Daniel Kulp
> Principal Engineer
> IONA
> P: 781-902-8727 C: 508-380-7194
> daniel.kulp@iona.com
> http://www.dankulp.com/blog
>
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>
>
--
Luciano Resende
http://people.apache.org/~lresende
Re: counting downloads
Posted by Martijn Dashorst <ma...@gmail.com>.
> From what I overheard, the old place is as bad as the new place. And
What I meant was: at *this time*. The new place is much better when
everything is set up.
Martijn
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Re: counting downloads
Posted by Martijn Dashorst <ma...@gmail.com>.
On 5/6/07, robert burrell donkin <ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> i'd rather have CXF and wicket in the old places and have the time to
> do this properly than delay the releases or rush the move
And this is why we put the release in the old place. We want to keep
our project going whilst still working with the IPMC to put it
eventually in the right place.
>From what I overheard, the old place is as bad as the new place. And
waiting 3-4 weeks with publishing this beta release would severely
curtail our roadmap.
Anyhow, I am glad that there seems to be a plan to work out the
details of where to put the distributions, and I would be happy to
help out (updating documents with this change for example).
Martijn
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Re: counting downloads
Posted by Daniel Kulp <da...@iona.com>.
Thanks for the clarification Robert. I'm glad we didn't mess something
up. :-)
I'll definitely keep an eye on the various threads for information about
the changes. It all sounds very good to me. :-)
Dan
On Sunday 06 May 2007 06:55, robert burrell donkin wrote:
> On 5/3/07, Daniel Kulp <da...@iona.com> wrote:
> > Noel,
> >
> > On Thursday 03 May 2007 03:59, Noel J. Bergman wrote:
> > > > Except you forget one detail: incubator artifacts don't go to
> > > > the mirror system.
> > >
> > > And that's changing/changed.
> >
> > Can I ask when? The vote that was called in mid march [1] never
> > had a "result" posted. The discussion [2] that started that vote
> > also didn't seem to reach any type of concensus.
>
> we've now had a clear call from infra
>
> (incubator works within broader apache policy)
>
> i've done this kind of infrastructure work before so i'll pull
> together a plan in JIRA and run it past people on this list and infra
>
> > I guess my major concern right now is the CXF/Wicket releases that
> > have gone out in the lasts couple days. Did we do the right thing
> > just putting them in /www/people.apache.org/dist/incubator or should
> > they have gone to the mirrors? There isn't
> > a /www/www.apache.org/dist/incubator directory. Anyway, I'd just
> > like to make sure we didn't do something wrong due to a policy
> > change I missed. (I could easily have missed it, email overload
> > and all)
>
> don't worry - IIRC the policy hasn't changed yet
>
> IMHO this is something that needs to be fixed by the IPMC. it's going
> to take a little while to pull everything together. we have some
> scripts in jakarta that generate the download pages from meta-data and
> that's the direction i think we need to move in. (they also have some
> cool RSS/news stuff for releases is cool)
>
> i'd rather have CXF and wicket in the old places and have the time to
> do this properly than delay the releases or rush the move
>
> - robert
>
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--
J. Daniel Kulp
Principal Engineer
IONA
P: 781-902-8727 C: 508-380-7194
daniel.kulp@iona.com
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Re: counting downloads
Posted by robert burrell donkin <ro...@gmail.com>.
On 5/3/07, Daniel Kulp <da...@iona.com> wrote:
>
> Noel,
>
> On Thursday 03 May 2007 03:59, Noel J. Bergman wrote:
> > > Except you forget one detail: incubator artifacts don't go to the
> > > mirror system.
> >
> > And that's changing/changed.
>
> Can I ask when? The vote that was called in mid march [1] never had
> a "result" posted. The discussion [2] that started that vote also
> didn't seem to reach any type of concensus.
we've now had a clear call from infra
(incubator works within broader apache policy)
i've done this kind of infrastructure work before so i'll pull
together a plan in JIRA and run it past people on this list and infra
> I guess my major concern right now is the CXF/Wicket releases that have
> gone out in the lasts couple days. Did we do the right thing just
> putting them in /www/people.apache.org/dist/incubator or should they
> have gone to the mirrors? There isn't
> a /www/www.apache.org/dist/incubator directory. Anyway, I'd just
> like to make sure we didn't do something wrong due to a policy change I
> missed. (I could easily have missed it, email overload and all)
don't worry - IIRC the policy hasn't changed yet
IMHO this is something that needs to be fixed by the IPMC. it's going
to take a little while to pull everything together. we have some
scripts in jakarta that generate the download pages from meta-data and
that's the direction i think we need to move in. (they also have some
cool RSS/news stuff for releases is cool)
i'd rather have CXF and wicket in the old places and have the time to
do this properly than delay the releases or rush the move
- robert
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Re: counting downloads
Posted by Daniel Kulp <da...@iona.com>.
Noel,
On Thursday 03 May 2007 03:59, Noel J. Bergman wrote:
> > Except you forget one detail: incubator artifacts don't go to the
> > mirror system.
>
> And that's changing/changed.
Can I ask when? The vote that was called in mid march [1] never had
a "result" posted. The discussion [2] that started that vote also
didn't seem to reach any type of concensus.
I guess my major concern right now is the CXF/Wicket releases that have
gone out in the lasts couple days. Did we do the right thing just
putting them in /www/people.apache.org/dist/incubator or should they
have gone to the mirrors? There isn't
a /www/www.apache.org/dist/incubator directory. Anyway, I'd just
like to make sure we didn't do something wrong due to a policy change I
missed. (I could easily have missed it, email overload and all)
[1]http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-general/200703.mbox/<31cc37360703151823u2099483dn95aeaed8c6752245%40mail.gmail.com>
[2]http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-general/200703.mbox/<31cc37360703140920h6a601b57gbb86ff0cd5e8049b%40mail.gmail.com>
--
J. Daniel Kulp
Principal Engineer
IONA
P: 781-902-8727 C: 508-380-7194
daniel.kulp@iona.com
http://www.dankulp.com/blog
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RE: counting downloads
Posted by "Noel J. Bergman" <no...@devtech.com>.
> Except you forget one detail: incubator artifacts don't go to the mirror
> system.
And that's changing/changed.
--- Noel
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Re: counting downloads
Posted by Daniel Kulp <da...@iona.com>.
On Wednesday 02 May 2007 18:43, Garrett Rooney wrote:
> The mirror system makes this an essentially unsolvable problem. Not
> to mention the fact that you have no clue if people are actually
> getting the code from one of our mirrors at all, they could get it
> from a linux distribution, or any number of other repackagers. On top
> of that, you can't correlate back to an individual person, so you
> don't know if you're getting one guy downloading it more than once
> because he's accidentally deleted it...
Except you forget one detail: incubator artifacts don't go to the mirror
system. (Which, again, I think is silly. Part of being in the
incubator is to learn about apache processes. One of those should be
the mirror system.)
To answer the question: all the logs are available on
people.apache.org:/x1/logarchive/people
You can parse them an pull out any information you want. Just keep in
mind that after you graduate, all warnings about the mirrors do apply,
so don't get used to having the download information.
--
J. Daniel Kulp
Principal Engineer
IONA
P: 781-902-8727 C: 508-380-7194
daniel.kulp@iona.com
http://www.dankulp.com/blog
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Re: counting downloads
Posted by Eelco Hillenius <ee...@gmail.com>.
> Unless they don't download it via your link, or they download more
> than once (getting copies on multiple machines?), or any number of
> other things that can throw your numbers off. It's a losing battle
> for statistics that IMO aren't very useful anyway. All download
> counts are good for is ego stroking, there are better ways to spend
> time and energy.
I agree with most of the comments here. But one thing download
statistic imho *are* useful for is measuring progress. Even if the
absolute numbers aren't useful, and trends are not reliable, it
definitively gives an idea of whether a project is gaining attention
or not.
Another thing is that even if statistics aren't reliable, people still
often want to have them. Matt Raible's talk on ApacheCon listed job
counts per framework on Dice for instance. Completely useless, but
people seem to love to hear it, even at Apache. Or there is my
publisher asking me for download statistics of the project I'm
involved in and using Amazon's ranking of a competing book to
'determine' the market potential for the topic.
Imho, it's enough to say that we/ Apache doesn't want to spend energy
on something that is technically hard or impossible and that in the
opinion of the people who have to support it serves little value.
Eelco
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Re: counting downloads
Posted by Garrett Rooney <ro...@electricjellyfish.net>.
On 5/5/07, Marshall Schor <ms...@schor.com> wrote:
> One confusion I have: If we count "clicks" on the download link, it
> seems that even if that link led to a "mirror" page, it would count
> pretty accurately (except of course if a person clicked to download, and
> then didn't bother going through with it). I guess it would also miss
> the case where people somehow found their way to a download mirror
> *without* going through the project download page. Did I miss
> something, or would this give a "reasonable" estimate of downloads?
Unless they don't download it via your link, or they download more
than once (getting copies on multiple machines?), or any number of
other things that can throw your numbers off. It's a losing battle
for statistics that IMO aren't very useful anyway. All download
counts are good for is ego stroking, there are better ways to spend
time and energy.
-garrett
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Re: counting downloads
Posted by Marshall Schor <ms...@schor.com>.
Noel J. Bergman wrote:
> Garrett Rooney wrote:
>
>
>> The mirror system makes this an essentially unsolvable problem.
>>
>
> And in addition to all of your other valid points, there is the problem of
> having a a farm of caching proxies on the ISP side of the net, leading to
> the seemingly odd case that the more popular a download, the less likely you
> are to get a good count, because the more likely it is to be served from the
> caching proxies.
> --- Noel
>
>
>
One confusion I have: If we count "clicks" on the download link, it
seems that even if that link led to a "mirror" page, it would count
pretty accurately (except of course if a person clicked to download, and
then didn't bother going through with it). I guess it would also miss
the case where people somehow found their way to a download mirror
*without* going through the project download page. Did I miss
something, or would this give a "reasonable" estimate of downloads?
-Marshall
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RE: counting downloads
Posted by "Noel J. Bergman" <no...@devtech.com>.
Garrett Rooney wrote:
> The mirror system makes this an essentially unsolvable problem.
And in addition to all of your other valid points, there is the problem of
having a a farm of caching proxies on the ISP side of the net, leading to
the seemingly odd case that the more popular a download, the less likely you
are to get a good count, because the more likely it is to be served from the
caching proxies.
--- Noel
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Re: counting downloads
Posted by Garrett Rooney <ro...@electricjellyfish.net>.
On 5/2/07, Marshall Schor <ms...@schor.com> wrote:
> We're curious to see how many downloads we're getting, perhaps sorted by
> ip number or who's downloading (I realize that would need be
> "volunteered" information).
> Do other projects have a good way to track this? I know we could pull
> the logs for the p.a.o webserver and grep through them looking for
> things, but I'm wondering if there's something we can put on our
> download page that users would click on that would count things?
The mirror system makes this an essentially unsolvable problem. Not
to mention the fact that you have no clue if people are actually
getting the code from one of our mirrors at all, they could get it
from a linux distribution, or any number of other repackagers. On top
of that, you can't correlate back to an individual person, so you
don't know if you're getting one guy downloading it more than once
because he's accidentally deleted it...
Get used to the idea that counting downloads is an inherently poor way
to judge if your software is being used. More interesting metrics
might be numbers of posts on mailing lists, bugs filed, etc.
-garrett
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Re: counting downloads
Posted by Luciano Resende <lr...@apache.org>.
Yes, I'd be interested in this information for the Apache Tuscany downloads
as well...
On 5/2/07, Marshall Schor <ms...@schor.com> wrote:
>
> We're curious to see how many downloads we're getting, perhaps sorted by
> ip number or who's downloading (I realize that would need be
> "volunteered" information).
> Do other projects have a good way to track this? I know we could pull
> the logs for the p.a.o webserver and grep through them looking for
> things, but I'm wondering if there's something we can put on our
> download page that users would click on that would count things?
>
> -Marshall Schor
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
>
>
--
Luciano Resende
http://people.apache.org/~lresende
Re: counting downloads
Posted by Xavier Hanin <xa...@gmail.com>.
FYI, Vadim is already providing stats on some (non incubating) projects:
http://people.apache.org/~vgritsenko/stats/projects/index.html
I don't know if it's easy for him to add incubating projects, and how
he deals with mirrors. In a sense even if the download counter is not
accurate, I agree with eelco to say that the trend can still be
interesting.
Xavier
On 5/2/07, Marshall Schor <ms...@schor.com> wrote:
> We're curious to see how many downloads we're getting, perhaps sorted by
> ip number or who's downloading (I realize that would need be
> "volunteered" information).
> Do other projects have a good way to track this? I know we could pull
> the logs for the p.a.o webserver and grep through them looking for
> things, but I'm wondering if there's something we can put on our
> download page that users would click on that would count things?
>
> -Marshall Schor
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@incubator.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@incubator.apache.org
>
>
--
Xavier Hanin - Independent Java Consultant
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