who is using plugins

I like to propose to have a mechanism to know who is using "my" plugin.
As a plugin developer it would be nice know how many and if possible who is using my plugin - besides soliciting posts by adding a bug.

It would be easy to just add a "callback" to my server to id that someone is using the plugin, but I hesitate to add that feature as it might be seen as spying on someone.

But could Matt/Jay add that feature as they already check if a new plugin version is available . They have License# (hence a unique ID) and could make a table that counts usage of plugins.
Or come up with a general proposal on how to implement that by the developer.
Or the users could volunteer to register on the indigo web site as a user of a plugin.


Karl

I've thought about this a lot and agree that putting in some kind of beacon would come off as skeevy and I don't want to do that. What I've used as a proxy is download statistics from Github. This isn't a perfect approach by any means, but it at least helps me know (relatively) which of my plugins have garnered the most interest.

[jay (support)]

We have some further statistics regarding plugins on our todo list (a real count of plugin downloads for instance). We have to consider carefully how much information we expose since we think privacy and security is extremely important (that's why getting our systems rearchitected to work securely and is so important to get OAuth-based integrations working in a secure manner). We hope to address it eventually. We will never (and I never say never) identify individual users to plugin developers, even via some opt-in mechanism, as that is really a huge potential privacy violation issue with lots of international legal consequences that would likely end our business.

In the interim, we highly recommend against developers inserting any kind of "dial home" functionality. While it may seem like a good idea, I guarantee you that many users would not be pleased with plugins doing this kind of thing. We've already gotten some (not a lot, but some) people concerned with doing version checks and what we're communicating back from the Indigo Server - and we have the purchase/support/trust relationship established with them. Legal consequences are real and damaging.

I'd like a count of installed and active system for each plugin. I agree that identifying the actual users is a bad idea. But just the counts would be great to help determine where to put effort on upgrades.

As a long-time user of many 3rd-party proxies, and as somebody who is otherwise fairly privacy-focused, I propose a checkbox to allow/ disallow use of the plugin
AND user. I’m happy to let the devs know they wrote helpful stuff, and knowing the user allows M&J to identify trends in functionality
(informing future release areas of focus).

[jay (support)]

I propose a checkbox to allow/ disallow use of the plugin
AND user.

I don't understand. The plugin already has enabled/disabled, and I don't know what "AND user" means.

I propose a checkbox to allow/ disallow use of the plugin
AND user.

I don't understand. The plugin already has enabled/disabled, and I don't know what "AND user" means.

I’m so sorry, I meant to allow REPORTING of the use of the plugin, and to allow REPORTING of which user is using it.

I might not give my data to most companies, but Karl, FlyingDiver, DaveL7, et al, and of course you and Jay are welcome to it.

I appreciate the vote of confidence, but to be honest, knowing individual users is of no interest to me. By using Github download counts, there's at least 2 shortcomings: 1) you can't tell if somebody downloaded it and decided not to use it/didn't like it, and 2) each release is reported separately so there's no way that I know of to arrive at a total user count.

[jay (support)]

I appreciate the vote of confidence, but to be honest, knowing individual users is of no interest to me. By using Github download counts, there's at least 2 shortcomings: 1) you can't tell if somebody downloaded it and decided not to use it/didn't like it, and 2) each release is reported separately so there's no way that I know of to arrive at a total user count.

Yeah, the github download count is pretty useless (that's why I hid it). I've got a plan to get a much more accurate one (eventually). We're also thinking about actual usage and how to factor that in.