I'm curious what you take is on this. I've used a lot of plugins in my years and when I was a vBdiot I've used some plugins that would "phone home" to the developer for reporting reasons. It normally contained the forum URL, installation date, and forum/plugin version.
Some devs would use the data to compile a script on their site that shows "# installs". Some would use the data for security reasons such as notifying those who installed their plugin about security patches. Others would use the data just to make sure that the plugin users didn't remove the copyrights on their plugins.
Keep in mind that some of these plugins were paid plugins (either one time or a monthly fee) and some were free.
How do you feel about this?
Added poll.
Provided this data was kept with appropriate confidentiality I don't really have a problem. Also the intervals shouldn't be too regular (maybe weekly or monthly) and I don't think it should contain any info like site hits, just info strictly related to the plugin.
Well the plugins I used only sent information on the initial install except for the plugins that required a monthly fee which contacted a licensing server for validation. And of course privacy is an issue which is why a lot of the developers included exactly what information the plugin collected. I'm hoping that's one of the things the MyBB staff scans for now since you wouldn't even know without looking at the code yourself.
I had one of these plugins once - it did send an email to the creator if somebody removed the copyright.
I removed the copyright (asked the author before, he gave me permission) - and guess what.
Site loaded 200 times - sent 200 emails out to the creator. After that I had to explain the massive email sending to my hoster (freeweb.de was it back then I think - paid hoster).
None of my plugins do phone home - ET can do that but MyBB plugins shouldn't. You never know what will happen and I don't want to recieve hundreds of emails because my plugin has been modified and I'm not interested in the stats of other boards.
Kind regards
Lennart Sauter
Wow, that's poor coding IMO. But aside from the devs who don't think to far into the future I'm beginning to like the idea more and more. After all, MyBB essentially does this anyways except it contacts the MyBB Mods site checking the plugin version.
It reminds me of the copy protection for gaming cd's and movie dvd's - just because there are some people stealing all others have to deal with key entries, problems with emulator software and crappy protection software.
Just because some people might steal MyBB plugins all others have to accept home calls that might cause extra traffic.
MyBB does only phone home when you ask it to do so.
It's hardly "extra traffic", a few KB at most.
As long as you keep it under control and don't send 200 mails out
It shouldn't phone home that often. One software package I worked on stored a checksum in a local database which included the date last validated and expiration date. The software tried to revalidate once a day starting a week before the expiration date. If the expiration date passed without a successful revalidation (eg. they didn't renew the lease), it would try to revalidate with each visit and display an error message.
(2009-10-12, 07:00 PM)laie_techie Wrote: [ -> ]It shouldn't phone home that often. One software package I worked on stored a checksum in a local database which included the date last validated and expiration date. The software tried to revalidate once a day starting a week before the expiration date. If the expiration date passed without a successful revalidation (eg. they didn't renew the lease), it would try to revalidate with each visit and display an error message.
but PHP is not compiled, so you could edit the code to get around it. You, as the developer, would have to go check sites that you knew installedit, but you wont know about sites that avoided registration in the first place. Sure you could Google for it, but you find all the installs.