Anonymous usage statistics

[gregzaal]

Usage statistics will help me see which features of Gaffer get used the most, allowing me to dedicate more time to improving them.

Obviously privacy is a big concern here, we don't want to accidentally violate anyone's NDA or make users feel like they're being spied on, so the following steps will be taken to respect user privacy and comply with regulations:

• All data transmitted will be completely anonymous. A completely random user ID (UID) will be generated upon installing Gaffer and used to associate the sent data with each user without personally identifying them. No IP addresses, hardware info, user names, file paths or any other personal information will be stored.
• Upon first usage of Gaffer, display a message to notify the user about data collection, with a button to opt-out next to the message.
• Users can opt-out of this system at any time from the User Preferences.
• At any time users can request to have their data deleted permanently from the server.
• The total aggregated usage statistics will be publicly visible on a web page so that users can see what the data is used for. The source code for this page will also be available. A raw dump of the entire database might be a good idea too.
• Have a privacy policy that explains to users what data is collected and how it is used.

The following information should be collected locally and then sent to the server at most once per day:

• User ID
• Usage of each operator
• An integer "seriousness" index that can be used to guess if a user is a serious artist/professional or hobbyist. This "seriousness" index will be determined by:
  • Scene polycount
  • Number of objects, lights, materials, and linked libraries
  • Blend file size
  • (None of the info above will actually be sent, they will only be used locally to calculate the "seriousness" value)
• A scene ID (random hash similar to the UID) used to identify the blend file and further iterations/versions of it saved in the same folder. If the file is saved to a different folder, the file is most likely a template of some kind so the SID should change.
• Current version of Blender and Gaffer

[gregzaal]

Postponing this to a future release, it's a can of worms and will need a lot more time for testing.