MailScanner- tracking downlaods - a cautionary note

[Quentin Campbell]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info [mailto:mailscanner-
>bounces at lists.mailscanner.info] On Behalf Of Scott Silva
>Sent: 02 October 2007 16:29
>To: mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info
>Subject: Re: MailScanner ANNOUNCE: 4.64.3 released
>
[snip]

Scott Silva said:

>> Jules
>You can always add some sort of "phone home with permission" type of
>thing to keep track of the installed base. Maybe something that sends
back OS and
>maybe a randomly generated and locally stored signature. That way you
would
>get a better idea of how many mailscanners are out there.
>Any body who is very paranoid could opt out.

Julian

If you chose to go down that route please be open and public about it
and ensure every downloader is fully aware that MailScanner will send
back info about usage to you.

You will recall that Antony Howe of SnertSoft recently received some
(mainly unfair) criticism for doing this in the many useful Sendmail
milters that he offers. There is always a danger that such criticism,
even when not justified, may have had an adverse impact on the
reputation of your software. 

However what SnertSoft software does is both appropriate and
proportionate but was open to the criticism that Anthony had not made it
as obvious to purchasers/downloaders as he could have in the licencing
conditions. He has since remedied that.   

We use some of the SnertSoft milters here and very useful they are too!
 
Quentin