Registration [LWN.net]

Registration

Posted May 23, 2007 10:48 UTC (Wed) by dark (✭ supporter ✭, #8483)
Parent article: A day at the Open Source Business Conference

"When is the proper point to start requiring registration, with a valid
email address, to download a software tarball?"

I would say... when you're tired of maintaining the software, and would
like someone to fork it.

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Registration

Posted May 23, 2007 17:25 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

The problem with questions like this is to figure out what is really being asked. The questioner usually isn't interested in registration for its own sake. He or she is interested in statistical data: how many users are there? Who are they? Why are they interested?

Users can often be persuaded to provide the same information voluntarily. For example, when they download, they will probably be interested in subscribing to a low-volume list that would be limited to new release announcements and alerts about security bugs, but would not be used for anything else.

Registration

Posted May 23, 2007 17:58 UTC (Wed) by wblew (subscriber, #39088) [Link]

However, as a *user* I see registration another way.

I see it as being put on somebody(s) marketing list(s) to receive their unsolicited marketing materials (i.e. spam).

Thus I largely opt out on the "please register your software".

Yes, I put my right to privacy ahead of their right to marketing data.

If there are two things I *love* about open source, they are:

1) usage without fee or registration

2) the ability to fix a *really* annoying bugs

PS: Yes, I have made a career of writing computer software.

Registration

Posted May 24, 2007 21:39 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

When I download software:

1) I want to try it. Chances are that I won't like it. I don't want to subscribe to anything yet.
2) I want to install it on another computer. Changes are I have already subscribed to everything I want.
3) I want to try the latest version (as opposed to the version that comes with my distro). Even in this case, it's likely that I just check the changelog and the mailing list archives.

Besides, I really don't want to give my contact information to any commercial entity that may have a stupid marketing department or may be forced to sell its e-mail lists in case of bankruptcy.

Even legitimate companies could misuse e-mail eventually. I got spammed by MontaVista recently. Apparently their marketing department just paid some spammers for the service. My position was strengthened by the fact that I hadn't subscribed to any of their mailings. If I had, they would have an excuse.