On Fri, 2019-10-04 at 10:38 -0400, Kihong Heo wrote:
> What is the main goal or agenda of popcorn in the Debian team?
> concerns about security, maintenance, or others?
I quote from the documents about popcon and add some thoughts below:
https://packages.debian.org/stable/popularity-contest
This information helps Debian make decisions such as which packages
should go on the first CD. It also lets Debian improve future
versions of the distribution so that the most popular packages are
the ones which are installed automatically for new users.
https://popcon.debian.org/
The popularity contest project is an attempt to map the usage of
Debian packages.
https://popcon.debian.org/README
With information from enough people, we can determine which packages
are most often used, which are often installed but not used, and
which are nearly never used. That way, we can help people make
decisions about which packages should fit on the first Debian
install CD, for example, or which packages are most important for an
FTP mirror site to keep.
My thoughts:
The main use for popcon data is when deciding whether to remove a
package or not, folks look at the numbers and graph for the individual
packages. The second most important use is ordering the packages on the
install images, that is less useful these days since we do not
distribute the whole archive as images any more. Sometimes folks use
the popcon graphs to compare popularity between multiple
implementations of some class of software (for eg init systems).
Sometimes folks use the list of packages not in Debian for research
about which external packages need to be added to Debian or which
external non-free or non-redistributable software is popular and needs
alternatives added to Debian. There are likely more use-cases I'm
forgetting or don't know about.
PS: I'd encourage you to share your research goals and results with the
Debian community on the debian-project list, add your results to the
research pages on the Debian wiki and present your results at the
Debian conference (Israel in 2020, undecided in 2021).
https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/
https://wiki.debian.org/research
https://wiki.debian.org/research/publications
https://wiki.debian.org/CategoryPublication
https://debconf20.debconf.org/
https://wiki.debian.org/DebConf/21
--
bye,
pabs
https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise