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

From: Saji Hameed <saji.nh_at_nyahnyahspammersnyahnyah>
Date: Wed Oct 13 2010 - 19:18:29 MDT

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 Wed Oct 13 19:18:40 2010

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