[Popcon-developers] HTTP POST support and popcon

[pere@hungry.com (Petter Reinholdtsen)]

[Bill Allombert]
> I agree, but this create a breach of trust to make the change without
> warning the users.[1] IOW, users upgrading to the new version have
> agreed we send the report through SMTP when saying OK in the debconf
> template[2] They did not agree we send it through HTTP.

Perhaps.  Or perhaps they agreed to submit reports, and the only
available method was SMTP at the moment.  At least that is what I
agreed to, no matter the wording of the template.

> To avoid that we to add a debconf template warning when users
> upgrade and change the installation template to mention both smtp
> and http.

Yes, this might be a good idea.

> Creating a new package will be much simpler to implement for sarge.

I do not believe a new package is a good idea.  We will then need to
re-educate all users familiar with the popularity-contest package that
there are now two packages, and we also need to update all the
documentation mentioning popularity-contest.  And, we will have the
problem with all the existing documents (postings, etc) mentioning the
popularity-contest package, and users reading old messages will not
find information about the rename.

> One good point: I should improve the script+CGI so that it is
> possible to know with certainty if the HTTP worked so we can skip
> smtp in that case.

Yes, we should do this.

I believe we should leave SMTP as the default now, add a low priority
debconf question to enable the "experimental" HTTP reporting, and try
HTTP first and SMTP next if HTTP failed when HTTP is enabled.

We should also rewrite the original debconf template to drop the
details of the reporting method, and change the default to have HTTP
enabled.  This way existing installations will continue using SMTP
unless the admin changes the configuration manually, new installations
will use HTTP, and no user should be surprised by the change of
reporting protocol.

Did you check in your changes?  Please do, so I can have a look at
perhaps extend it.