Frequently Asked Questions ============================= Why this Package? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tracking the use of open software is, in general, very difficult, and with many open source projects being supported by private and public funding agencies, a means of more quantitative reporting would be beneficial. Current tracking options exist, but are relatively limited: - `PyPi `_ tracks downloads, but cannot track when packages are installed with downstream package managers like `conda `_, `brew `_, `Aptitude `_, and others. - Software hosting services like `GitHub `_ provide information about project forks, but no information about number of downloads or clones. - Other means of tracking (mailing list traffic, bug report traffic, StackOverflow questions) are helpful but difficult to quantify and compare between projects. More fine-grained user tracking is accepted practice for blogs and other websites, and ``popylar`` seeks to add that capability to software packages. Wait... is this really OK? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Short answer: we're not sure. We agree that this feels a bit icky at first-blush, and we are open to feedback about the ethical issues or potential abuse of such a setup. That being said, the information tracked by popylar is identical to that tracked by any site using Google Analytics, including likely your favorite independent blogs, and popylar solves a real problem faced by many developers of the open source tools you probably depend on. What information is tracked? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The tracked information is exactly that stored by Google Analytics when you visit a website, with the addition of a few pieces of metadata that can be configured by the package. In particular, the only identifying information provided by the Python package is a randomly-generated unique ID. Can a user opt-out? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yes. If a user runs ``popylar.opt_out()``, popylar will never track usage for that system/user, and this opt-out state is preserved between sessions. Can I still use packages off-line? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yes. If no internet connection is detected, no information will be reported by popylar and the script will continue to execute as normal. Where can I give feedback or offer ideas? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you would like to weigh-in on this idea, please use Popylar's [Github Issues](https://github.com/popylar/popylar/issues). We'd love to hear your thoughts, particularly on any ethical or technical issues we may be overlooking.