> If they hide everything away so as to respect your time, then another user will be frustrated by the constant magic going on in the background.

How did we update software in the 80s? Simple, by taking an action: inserting the floppy with the new software, starting the update program, etc.

Why can't it be like that? (Except the floppies replaced by opening a menu and clicking "update")

Why do updates have to be performed at a pace controlled by the vendor of the software and why do I need to be reminded about updates?

I'll just install them when I think I need them, thank you.

Because in practice if you don't push people to update, they just don't update. And then complain about bugs, security issues, bad performance, missing features, etc... all available in the updates they have been postponing for years.

I 100% feel this pain. And for security updates and major fixes, I see the need for frequent updates.

Though setting aside practicality for a bit I wish we would design software to be more backwards compatible so old versions of things could continue to work for longer. I shouldn't have to buy a new phone every three years, for example.

Also for a tool like Audacity, I rarely need to update it. It doesn't depend on a service, so I don't need to worry about an API falling out of support and he security risks are much lower. I wish we could design more of our software to work this way.

Obviously for internet connected things like browsers this isn't possible as the security impacts are significantly higher, but why should I need to update Word every month if I don't plan to use the online components, for example.

Or alternatively they do update and their critical application stops working.

Worse, they use that out of date software to run web servers, databases, etc. The next thing you know, millions of peoples PII is leaked.

I also wonder if there is a liability component to this that makes force updating a common pattern.

that is a problem but servers are one place where there should absolutely not ever have automated updates that cannot be overridden and turn off as you are apt to break things if it isn't tested first.

Agreed. ideally you want both. Automated security updates and integration testing.

Just spitballing here: what if we selectively notified users of updates when they'll be affected? So, when I'm using my spreadsheet program, and I go to sort the rows, a little note pops up informing me that there's a bug in sorting non-ascii characters that was fixed recently and would I like to update my word processor now or continue anyway?

I'm imagining some automated tooling where changelogs are tied to specific git commits, and when you go down a code path that has a changelog entry tied to it in this way, it pops up the dialog. The program downloads the changelogs in the background (if the user chooses), but doesn't pop up a notification unless it's relevant to the user.

I don't think it would entice more people into upgrading. People don't necessary want to stay on old versions, they just don't want to be interrupted. To make it more probable that a user updates, you need to make the interruption as little as possible: download stuff in the background, make it patches rather than full blown installer, ... to follow in your direction, if I have a popup that says "you just sorted rows alphabetically but there's a bug, do you want me to fix it ?" and the install takes 5 seconds then it's good. If it takes 30 minutes then screw your update

I think what we need is another way of architecturing software. I'm thinking of Erlang's actors and hot reloading: the whole language and its environment were built to allow upgrading parts of the app without turning the whole thing off, thanks to actors that compartmentalize state and minimize the places where it can change. That's extremely useful for servers, but why can't I have the same for desktop apps ? For your example again, maybe have some "actor" that can give me a sort, and when updates come the old instance is killed and the new instance takes its place. No need to turn down the app, to lose my current work, to waste dozens of minutes.

Unfortunately desktop apps are pretty much dead for the masses, and webapps solve both the problem of not updating (next time you come it'll be updated) and atomic updates (a client side app can load some javascript when needed). If we want desktop apps to come back (I do) we need to find a way to do the same

> I don't think it would entice more people into upgrading. People don't necessary want to stay on old versions, they just don't want to be interrupted.

It might, if you did it like GP posted:

>> a little note pops up informing me that there's a bug in sorting non-ascii characters that was fixed recently

>> The program downloads the changelogs in the background (if the user chooses)

Note the stark deviation from standard practice: GP would like the popups to actually tell you what's in the update.

In my experience with both techies and non-techies alike, the main reason everyone hates updates is that it's always a cat in a bag. You'll likely get some bug fixes. You may get some new features. Some of those may even be useful. It's more likely the app will become slower instead of faster. It's quite likely there will be disruptive UI changes. Often completely gratuitous ones.

Random recent example: I noticed my wife has an OS update on her phone pending for the past three months. I asked, she agreed, I did the update round. Told her, "wow, you're getting a version bump, I envy you". I immediately noticed some user-set icons were wrong[0], but quickly corrected it without saying anything. I though that's the worst of it. Couple hours later, she comes back to me complaining that the update messed up notification sounds and the new keyboard has changed scaling, breaking her muscle memory for touch typing. Also the battery life dropped significantly.

Updates today are like loot boxes in games, except most of the "rewards" make your life worse.

One solution to this problem would be to have a separate stream for feature updates, and a separate one for bugfixes and security updates - and only ever bother the user about the latter. But that would increase the costs for the software vendor, and we can't have that. Who are you, the user, to complain about what your lord does? SaaS stands for Serfdom as a Service.

--

[0] - The ones you assign to your SIM cards in dual-SIM use scenario. The update added new icons to the set, and apparently the OS must have been storing user choice as an index into that set, instead of using icon ID.

Can't agree more with everything you're saying, except for the last part: if bugfixes/security updates are in one stream, and new features are in another, the first one should be applied all the time without asking, and the second one should be the one that prompts a pop-up.

> SaaS stands for Serfdom as a Service

It's interesting that the SaaS term was born from the Cloud, but its tenets still apply to desktop applications

> bugfixes/security updates (...) should be applied all the time without asking

I'd agree in most cases, but I'd still leave some grace period for updates that require rebooting the app or the OS. Nag and cajole the user all you want, but don't ever lose their data, or interrupt them during a meeting.

> SaaS term was born from the Cloud, but its tenets still apply to desktop applications

There are two main facets of SaaS - a nice one, and a nasty one. The nice one is that it outsources ops/maintenance. You're just using the software, someone else is keeping it running and up to date - and it's more efficient this way. The nasty one is, the party controlling the software is in position of power - they can make you pay rent, lock you in and hold your data ransom, and exploit your data in ways you don't want - and you can't do anything to stop it.

Desktop apps relinquish most of the benefits of SaaS, but the drawbacks were backported to local software by means of normalizing subscriptions and automatic updates.

> a little note pops up informing me that there's a bug in sorting non-ascii characters that was fixed recently

Grandpa goes: Sorting? Wha? Non-ASCII? What's ASCII? Characters? Like on TV??

Too complicated.

so put a check box in the setting to let the power users take care of themselves because they ostensibly know what they are doing

I just want updates to happen in a separate 'thread'. Not (necessarily) in the literal sense, in the sense of my human attention. Update in the background, don't interfere with my use of the application itself — at most, give me an icon that tells me the application will be a newer version the next time I restart it, a bit like how Google Chrome manages its updates.

I generally agree. And Chromes method is definitely better than Steam's where you have to wait 30 seconds on boot every few days for it to load.

But that introduces issues where if Google adds some shitty new feature to Chrome I sorta get forced into it instead of having an opportunity to choose, so there's definitely a tradeoff and also a responsibility on the part of the vendor to make sure they aren't abusing their ability to install things on my computer.

I don't like automatic updates either. I can just acquire the new version somehow and update it that way (perhaps handled by the package manager, when I tell it to update the package); it shouldn't be a part of the program itself, I think.

Well, there is value in an upgrader that keeps everything up to date. But we didn’t get that either - at least on desktops.

I don't agree. Updating is not always an improvement. Even if only the UI is affected: often you just want things to be the same.

I totally agree that provided enough time and users, changing the user interface will almost always break some users experience. “Better” is subjective.

What about security updates?

They should be separate. On a well implemented system, you’d be able to apply those automatically

Most Linux systems have the option to auto apply security updates.

Ever used Linux? ;)

The way Linux puts the package manager front-and-center is pretty cool, but in my experience it doesn't result in a very up-to-date system. You might have a version of OpenOffice that is years out of date. Oh, you want the latest version? You need to update your Ubuntu 16.04 first, it'll say!

I'm a programmer and still this makes no sense to me. Windows and Mac somehow let me use the latest OpenOffice even if I haven't updated my OS in forever.

> Oh, you want the latest version? You need to update your Ubuntu 16.04 first, it'll say!

Well, yes, that's the flipside of updating everything at the same time. You have to update everything :)

And if you're using an LTS version of an OS, you'll usually get a related LTS version of the apps from the same era, especially for the older OS versions. Because they prioritise production stability. If you just use it as a working desktop you'd be better off using the bi-yearly versions.

You’re looking for a rolling release or something like flatpak, rather than an LTS.

Sure, but why? I can easily install the latest Firefox on Windows XP most likely (or could until a few years ago), but I can't on Ubuntu 20.04 (or couldn't until Firefox started doing auto updates on Ubuntu as well)?

Because Linux folks like to bash on Windows, while in reality they live like every application would be putting their stuff into C:\Windows, like Windows used to do in the old day pre-XP.

So naturally when all applications depend on the same shared libraries and configuration files, they need to be updated on a full swoop.

Yeah, when one knows their way around UNIX it is possible to actually install new software that works around this, but that is exactly the problem for most desktop users, "one knows their way around UNIX".

> while in reality they live like every application would be putting their stuff into C:\Windows, like Windows used to do in the old day pre-XP.

I hate that you are correct, at least to some extent. In that analogy, the / directory is really C:/Windows, with everything attached under that.

What have we done. Perhaps Mac OS got at least one thing right: /Applications and /Users at the top level.

>C:\Windows, like Windows used to do in the old day pre-XP.

No.

Yes.

And you can easily install the same from the snap store if that’s what you want. Linux always gives you choices.

On my Linux systems, both server and desktop there are a set of programs that I don’t use the package manager for, because they’re usually out of date.

This includes browsers, where I let the auto updates handle it, and programming environments (Python, R, Node), where I often use their specific updaters.

I don’t think it’s realistic to expect a global curated package manager to stay on top of the bleeding edge all the time.

I think we can safely assume that the answer to that question is “no” for most of the people in this thread complaining about the desktop!

I think this is it.

The extreme alternative to "device, please don't ask me when you want to update something, just do it" is losing control of your computer. If you're comfortable, like the author mentions, having your digital "home" be away from your devices, to "live in the cloud", I guess this doesn't matter (at least, while your favorite cloud providers and services don't shut down taking all your data with them, decide to hike prices, or ban you for breaking some ToS rule).

If you want to fully own your computer, it matters. You don't want to give away all control over it.

I don't think those are the only options. For example, Linux Mint shows an icon in the system tray to indicate when repository updates are available. I fully own the computer, and it is my choice if/when to apply updates. However, that doesn't imply that each individual program needs to yell at me at startup to get updates.

Yes, that's why I mentioned it as the extreme alternative. An option more in the middle is a gentle, non urgent, non nagging reminder.

But what about security updates, though?

For security updates it still depends on risk though.

A flaw in my browser is extremely high risk and I require it fixed and updated quickly. But a flaw in my SSH server that is only accessible from behind a VPN is lower. And the risk is lower still if it's a flaw in a feature which I do not use.

I don't see an easy solution of course, it's a hard problem. But I wish that I had more granular control over what and when I update, and was given a clearer way to see the impacts of the update so I could weigh risk.

On Debian Stable, pretty much all updates are security updates.

It would be lovely if it became a standard part of everybody's work day to spent 15 minutes doing TLC to their computer.

You'd clear away all the stubs of work, and the computer would say "Hi! Did you have a good work day? Here are a few things that would be great for you to do:

1. Upgrade these two apps

2. Do you want to check out how Dark Mode works? No? Ok

3. You've had these 46 tabs open since that one day six weeks ago you got into the idea of building your own treehouse. Want me to save them all in a notebook entry and remind you about it next summer?

Really, any machine needs maintenance. Even an electric stove or a microwave needs an occasional clean if it gets dirty. Why should computers be the only special appliance that needs no maintenance whatsoever?

I'm generally in favor of more control too. Though that control extends to wanting to be able to control when my software updates and when I get to have new features, settings,etc.

My comment above is more of a rant than a recommendation.

The notification center or whatever it's called that's available in pretty much every modern OS would be a good location for such stuff. It's available, retrievable and not in the way when you don't want it.