[Popcon-developers] Bug#681721: Bug#681721: Bug#681721: popularity-contest: option to limit the list of packages sended to popcon

[Bill Allombert]

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 11:17:08PM +0200, Stéphane Blondon wrote:
> 16 juillet 2012, Christian PERRIER:
> > Is there a point in reporting non official packages?
> 
> I have been told it's a way to know other used packages so it could
> help to know what is needed by debian' users.

Yes, it is useful to find packages that are somehow missing in Debian proper.

> 2012/7/16 Bill Allombert <Bill.Allombert at math.u-bordeaux1.fr>:
> > The issue is how popcon can reasonnably known whether a package is "official"
> > or not.
> 
> The list of packages provided by the debian repository seems to be a
> good start to me.
> For example for an AMD64 arch processor:
>  -  http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian/dists/squeeze/main/binary-amd64/Packages.bz2
>  - the same archive for contrib and non-free (?)

But how do you perform the check client-side ?

> > Also the list of official packages installed which are dependencies of the
> > sensitive packages might provide too string an hint that the sensitive package
> > is installed anyway.
> 
> I don't think it's a problem because the dependancy pckages stats are
> summed up to all other users' stats.

Only on the server side, not in the report that are sent to the server.

If really your packages are sensitive, you do not want them to be transmitted in
clear text to the server, I suppose.

Cheers,
-- 
Bill. <ballombe at debian.org>

Imagine a large red swirl here.