[petsc-dev] I hate nagupgrade

[Aron Ahmadia]

FWIW, I'm introducing a patch in the PETSc distribution in HashStack to
disable this check from the Makefiles.  I see the value of this being an
opt-in check the user can run: `make info; make self-update`, but not an
automated check unless the user opts-in at configure.  That's the
responsibility of the system/package manager, not a library.

A

On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 11:21 PM, Karl Rupp <rupp at iue.tuwien.ac.at> wrote:

> Hi,
>
>  There is a difference between a library and an end-user application.
>> Having "updaters" for end-user applications seems to be the status quo
>> on Windows and to a lesser extent on Macs, but is resented on Linux.
>> Having a library do these checks is not okay anywhere.
>>
>
> I remember a session at the Google Summer of Code where some guy from one
> of the open source wikis shared his experiences with having embedded a
> 'counter pixel' in a release. In short, his lesson learned was that any
> kind of "phoning home" is an absolute no-go unless made *very* clear to the
> users (plus opt-out). This was pre-Snowden, so many people are now much
> more sensible with respect to these matters...
>
> Best regards,
> Karli
>
>
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