Re: Anonymous downloads for NCL/NCARG, PyNIO and PyNGL?

Hi all,

It is no longer the case that you have to wait to download a file after submitting your registration. As
of April 2010, registrations that are for NCL/PyNIO/PyNGL downloads should automatically be approved,
and you should be able to download the file right away.

I like Saji's suggestion of trusted package managers. Let me contact our ESG developers and see
if there are any possibilities for improving this process.

I appreciate everybody's comments on this.

--Mary

On Oct 13, 2010, at 7:18 PM, Saji Hameed wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> I guess the registration is not so much of a problem, in the sense one
> can script out the process of submitting the registration form, for
> example using a library such as Mechanize or Watir. The problem is
> that 'earthsystemgrid.org' does not process registrations right away -
> there is a delay of a day or two (I guess the registration is manually
> screened).
>
> One solution is to expedite the registration process by automatically
> allowing access once a registration is made. However one has to worry
> about spam in this case. Another way is to allow for
> 'earthsystemgrid.org' to trust registered package-managers. These
> trusted package managers can then automate the installation and update
> processes on behalf of the client.
> Both 'earthsystemgrid.org' and the package managers have to add some
> extra functionality in this case.
>
> saji
> --
>
> On 10/13/10, Charlie Sharpsteen <source@sharpsteen.net> wrote:
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Charlie Sharpsteen <chuck@sharpsteen.net>
>> Date: Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 3:33 PM
>> Subject: Re: Anonymous downloads for NCL/NCARG, PyNIO and PyNGL?
>> To: Mary Haley <haley@ucar.edu>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 2:22 PM, Mary Haley <haley@ucar.edu> wrote:
>>> Hi Charlie,
>>>
>>> I agree that this download process is a bit of a pain.
>>>
>>> The reason why we have to do it this way is because we have to be able to
>>> report
>>> to NSF (our main funders) why we should be able to continue developing the
>>> software. Anonymous metrics don't carry nearly as much weight as being
>>> able to
>>> indicate what types of sites (universities, research companies, weather
>>> bureaus,
>>> government sites, etc) are downloading the software, and how many of these
>>> downloads are actually from unique users. Being able to say that X number
>>> of users
>>> from Y countries is also very valuable to NSF. We have to prove that NCL
>>> is having
>>> an impact on science, and that is one way of doing it.
>>>
>>> There are some folks who have provided packaged NCL binaries for LINUX
>>> systems,
>>> and we just quietly look the other way. :-)
>>>
>>> --Mary
>>
>> Hi Mary,
>>
>> I was afraid this might be the answer. I find it very unfortunate
>> that the NSF heavily weights such detailed download statistics as the
>> collection of such statistics can drive both users and developers away
>> from the software.
>>
>>
>> I was moved to start this discussion by a use case that came up in a
>> software project I am currently working on. One of my teammates
>> needed to access GRIB files from Python in order to extract data. He
>> tried using the Python bindings to GDAL and PyNIO and preferred PyNIO.
>> However, the software we are making has to be delivered to a client
>> and one of the questions we will have to answer is "What do I need to
>> do to get this running on my machine?"
>>
>> If I can say something along the lines of:
>>
>> "Simply run `<package manager> install gdal` and you're ready to rock"
>>
>> Then the client is happy. However, if my answer is:
>>
>> "Well, first you have to go to earthsystemgrid.org, then you have
>> to register, then you have to..."
>>
>> Things don't go so smoothly and I spend the next weeks answering
>> nervious emails from the client asking why we are using open source,
>> why Python, why isn't it easier, etc. So the end result is that we
>> may choose to use GDAL over PyNIO, even though we would much rather
>> use PyNIO, just because the deployment process will have less steps
>> for the end user.
>>
>>
>> As a developer, I face a different dilemma. I am perfectly willing to
>> put in the time to make NCL available as a turnkey installation on the
>> OS X operating system thus potentially increasing the number of active
>> users. However, doing so would require setting up a mirror to serve
>> the source code -- which is no problem -- but this could potentially
>> decrease the number of users who retrieve it from earthsystemgrid.org.
>> Thus I am in the unfortunate position of having to ask the question
>> "would donating my time and energy to increasing the availability and
>> usability of this software end up causing more harm than good?"
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Received on Fri Oct 15 10:27:32 2010