[Ayatana] What most people would find useful (was: Re: Updates on Login )

[Jonathan Marsden <jmarsden@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Joshua Blount wrote:

> It may be a good idea, as David suggested, to look past our personal 
> user stories, and look for what most people would find useful.

"Most useful" here is probably somewhat synonymous with "least 
surprising".  If the target default Ubuntu end user comes from a 
Microsoft Windows background, then the Windows XP SP2 style is what that 
user is probably familiar with: (a) At installation or first use, there 
is a screen indicating that auto update will be enabled; (b) Daily 
automatic updates in the background at 3am; (c) The user can alter this, 
but very few do.

I'm not sure that is going to win many hearts and minds, and clearly it 
is not innovative... but it is what many users have come to expect their 
computers to do, because bug #1 is not yet fixed!

One problem is that this behaviour is not what current Ubuntu users 
expect, so some existing Ubuntu users (power users???) probably *will* 
be surprised, and (perhaps as evidenced by this discussion and the 300+ 
comments on a single bug) they are likely to be vocal about their 
unhappiness.

Another problem is that automated updates by default are bad for some 
users -- those with slow or expensive Internet connections.

If the primary issue being addressed is "many users rarely or never 
update their systems; how can we get more users to update more often", 
then an automated update by default is probably the most effective and 
most convenient solution.

If we accept that, then how to best address the "slow or expensive 
Internet connection" issues for the minority becomes a secondary 
question.  Important, but secondary.  All the "update on login vs logoff 
vs pop-under vs where-do-we-put-the-icon" or "how exactly do we notify 
or prompt the user about updates" debate is *only* relevant for the 
users in this minority, if the default for the well-connected majority 
is a fully automated background update. (I don't know of statistics on 
the fraction of Ubuntu users with slow or expensive connections vs those 
with fast-enough and unlimited-enough ones -- does anyone have such info?).

BOTTOM LINE: Default to fully automated updates, unless circumstances 
are exceptional.

Further thoughts: Are there ways the system can try to determine "I'm on 
a slow connection" (ping latency to a Ubuntu server?  Test throughput 
for a small file download?) and so defer an automated update in those 
circumstances?  Or just let the user specify this per interface?  I 
don't think there's a way to automatically determine "I'm on an 
expensive connection", so users would (presumably) need to provide info 
on that when a network connection is first configured.

Would it make sense for users to specify whether or not a given network 
connection is "expensive" (and/or "slow"), so that an automated updater 
can "do the right thing"?  Are there other network applications that 
would find knowing whether a given network connection was "slow" or 
"expensive" useful so they could adapt their behaviour (BitTorrent? 
Streaming audio/video players?) ?

One last (perhaps weirder) thought: for those with mobile devices that 
generally have a slow/expensive wireless connection, having a 
home/office PC or NAS box act as a Ubuntu mirror, so updates from it are 
really fast when the mobile device is "home", might be worth exploring. 
 For "notebook + smartphone + home media server" type households, this 
could be very convenient.  Right now, local Ubuntu mirrors (or just 
Ubuntu *update* mirrors) at home or in the office are for the techie few 
only... is this something we could or should be looking to make 
significantly easier, to help with the whole update issue?

Jonathan