[wp-xmlrpc] GSOC - are there any improvements that could be made

[Eitan Adler]

> I built a rudimentary system that uses XML-RPC in my plug-ins to report back
> to my server.  It's only active in a few private plug-ins right now, but
> here's the gist: When a plug-in is first activated, it uses XML-RPC to
> report back to me what plug-in it is, where it was activated, the admin's
> contact email (in case I need to contact them), and the highest version of
> everything installed (WP, PHP, MySQL, etc).  If installation fails, it sends
> me an error message that ties in to this registration ... that way I can
> contact the blog owner and explain what went wrong and hopefully how to fix
> it.
What about the privacy implications (regarding the contact email
address)?  If such a system were to be implemented I would imagine
that all the data would have to get back to wordpress.org (to be
filtered and/or to avoid spyware plugins) and have the developers
access it through some kind of web interface.

> Having a full system would be a LIFESAVER for me as a developer.  There have
> been a handful of times where I've released a plug-in for the current
> version of WP only to have users who'd refused to upgrade install it and
> flame me online for distributing a "broken" plug-in.
This system sounds very interesting to me.

Here is what I imagine
1) A new function would be created that gathers the information
required and serializes it for use in xml-rpc. The information
required would involve WP-install info and optionally php, mysql, etc
information.
2) the user would be presented with a dialog asking if they want to
submit the report
3) this information would get sent to some domain (likely
wordpress.org) and collected in a database
4) The user gets presented with a "problem report ID" along with the
normal error message which they could use in reporting bugs.
Furthermore the developers would have access to aggregate information
about how their plugins are being used.