tl;dr: Please fill out this survey about metered data connections, regardless of whether you run GNOME or often use metered data connections.

We’re now into the second day of the metered data hackfest in London. Yesterday we looked at Endless’ existing metered data implementation, which is restricted to OS and application updates, and discussed how it could be reworked to fit in with the new control centre design, and which applications would benefit from scheduling their large downloads to avoid using metered data unnecessarily (and hence costing the user money).

The conclusion was that the first step is to draw up a design for the control centre integration, which determines when to allow downloads on metered connections, and which connections are actually metered. Then to upstream the integration of metered data with gnome-software, so that app and OS updates adhere to the policy. Integration with other applications which do large downloads (such as podcasts, file syncing, etc.) can then follow.

While looking at metered data, however, we realised we don’t have much information about what types of metered data connections people have. For example, do connections commonly limit people to a certain amount of downloads per month, or per day? Do they have a free period in the middle of the night? We’ve put together a survey for anyone to take (not just those who use GNOME, or who use a metered connection regularly) to try and gather more information. Please fill it out!

Today, the hackfest is winding down a bit, with people quietly working on issues related to parental controls or metered data, or on upstream development in general. Richard and Kalev are working on gnome-software issues. Georges and Florian are working on gnome-shell issues.