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Robert wrote:
<blockquote class=" cite" id="mid_53E9748A_7080306_KaiRo_at"
cite="mid:53E9748A.7080306@KaiRo.at" type="cite">Axel Grude
schrieb:
<br>
<blockquote class=" cite" id="Cite_335154" type="cite"
style="color: #000000;">Am 11/08/2014 um 20:42 schrieb Kent
James:
<br>
<blockquote class=" cite" id="Cite_9772873" type="cite"
style="color: #000000;"><rant>I have been trying for 2
years to get permission to publish the
<br>
available data on Thunderbird usage without success. Yes we
have data,
<br>
yes Thunderbird usage is growing, but these numbers are only
available
<br>
to staff, and when shared with me privately they are always
stated as
<br>
unshareable except in broad statements. Nobody seems to be
able to
<br>
figure out who has permission to release these numbers
publicly. </rant>
<br>
</blockquote>
Ok, this one I really don't understand. What's the point in an
open
<br>
source product when you can't share usage data?
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
The concern is and always has been what the press makes of that
data. Mozilla has been burned pretty toughly when this "ADU"
("Active Daily Users") data was made public and showed ~160M for
Firefox, while a few weeks earlier there had been talks in a
press release about how Firefox had ~500M users. The result was
press articles about how Firefox "miraculously lost" 2/3 of its
users, just because journalists could not distinguish estimated
amounts of total users based on market share numbers (the 500M
number) from an actual count of daily add-on blocklist update
pings that Mozilla Metrics ended badly naming as those "ADU"
numbers.
<br>
After that bad press of "losing most of its users", policy was
made to 1) rename ADU to "ADI" ("Active Daily Installations"),
though I prefer just calling them "(addon) blocklist pings" as
that's what they really are, and 2) not making those numbers
public anywhere to avoid them being misinterpreted.
<br>
<br>
I agree that it's unfortunate we are in this place, but I also
understand why we are. We even know that there's some basic
flaws in our ADI metrics, from not sending those pings in all
cases where we probably should to losing logs of pings on the
server side (we are working on a remedy for the latter), and the
FHR metrics are much better in answering usage (but I think
neither Thunderbird nor any other non-Firefox product has
those).
<br>
<br>
All that said, being open source and using open processes for
development doesn't mean that all data that is collected through
metrics and feedback mechanisms has to be open. For privacy
reasons, it's even good that not all data sent to us via various
mechanisms is public. It's something we need to weight
carefully.
<br>
Still, I think overall ADI summary data should be more easily
accessible (and when you know where, you can even get to some of
it easily, e.g. via crash-stats).
</blockquote>
</div>
Okay I get that - an easy to digest published estimate on the front
page would be helpful, never the less. The last official estimate I
heard (about 2 years ago) was between 8 to 20 million users, is that
anywhere near reality? Also Kent mentioned the user numbers
increasing, a percentage / year would be good enough as an argument
against the nay-sayers.<br>
<br>
I am also keeping a close eye on the user statistics of my Addons to
get a feel for whether they are stagnating or making progress. Would
it be possible to get a graph (like on the Addons statistics) on
various metrics for Thunderbird itself? It could also show trends on
the different languages / Operating Systems and might be helpful if
we were to do some marketing to grow specific user bases.<br>
<br>
Axel
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href="mailto:axel.grude@gmail.com">Axel</a></b>
<br>
Software Developer
<br>
Thunderbird Add-ons Developer
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