Qt module use statistics

Use cases

• As Qt I want to know how widely Qt modules are used.  
• As Qt I want to know how widely graphics / multimedia backeds are used (to be split to a separate feature).
• As Qt I want to know how widely different build systems are used (to be split to a separate feature).

Current status 

• There is no way to know how widely a given Qt module is used.

What is the benefit? Why is this valuable?

• Qt is aware of how widely each Qt module is used.
• Qt is able to utilize module popularity knowledge in planning and development. 

User stories

• As Qt I want to know how much the individual Qt framework modules are utilized 

• As a Qt Creator used I want to be informed that my use of Qt framework modules shall be included in the colleted telemetry data
• As Qt I want Qt Creator to harvest information about used Qt framework modules if the user has consented to the collection of statistics
• As Qt I want Qt Creator to store information about used Qt framework modules 
• As Qt framework product manager I want to view the collected statistics about used Qt framework modules 

Technical information

• Open issues
  • where and when to collect
    • which interaction is hooked to generating the module use report
    • how to avoid unnecessary reporting
      • assuming local cache mechanism - store to server only when content changes
    • whether to / how to identify projects in order not to generate duplicates or otherwise bogus data 
      • is hashed project name a usable, or should it use full path of the working directory or something else?  
    • how to provide anonymity / pseudonymity for the data
      • if only the project name is used, ought not to be an issue
      • with use of full path, the account name will likely be present 
  • where and how to store
    • Qt Insight requires a mechanism to utilize structured data instead of storing only numbers as values (see linked issue). 
  • how to provide access to data 
    • It is likely that even with the addition of support for storing structured data, Qt Insight does not visualize it, so the data needs to be post-processed. However, as the data consists of arrays of keys (possibly with values), a script to generate a per-module report out of it is easy to implement. 

Acceptance criteria 

• TBC

Dependencies

• Qt Insight