[wp-hackers] Collecting de-identified environment info via plugin

[Austin Matzko]

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Matt Jacob <matt at mattjacob.com> wrote:
> As a plugin developer, it seems like it would be useful to collect
> information about the environments in which my plugin is running
> (things like PHP version, WP version, plugin version, etc.). This
> would obviously help me tailor future releases to better meet the
> needs of my users. Data would only be collected after the user opts
> in, and they would be able to opt out at any time.
>
> Now I'm curious if WordPress generates some kind of unique
> "installation ID" or if I'll have to come up with something myself. I
> only care to collect de-identified data, as I have no use for the IP
> address, hostname of the server, URI of the WP installation, etc. The
> less information I have about the user, the better.
>
> Has anyone done this in the past? Any pointers or suggestions?

WP sends WP version, MySQL version, PHP version, language locale, and
some other information back to WordPress.org every time it checks for
updates to WordPress.  See wp_version_check() in wp-includes.php.

The IP address is automatically provided unless the site is behind
some kind of proxy.

There is no "installation ID" in core WP, but you could probably
create a good-enough anonymous one by hashing the siteurl option
value.