[petsc-dev] I hate nagupgrade

[Barry Smith]

> On Nov 11, 2014, at 2:43 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...
>> 
>> 
>> I am all for a configure opt-out, and noting it in every piece of
>> documentation. My impression of the level
>> of sophistication of most users is that we will see few opt-outs.
> 
> I bet that some Germans would still be very upset about an opt-out rather than an opt-in (yes, this is a cultural issue...).
> 
> Is there much value from a nagupgrade check at configure-time? Those who download a fresh copy of PETSc don't have any benefit from the check. After the installation, the check has no effect

  Karl,

   I don't understand? Is there a bug in the current code? If the user has write access to the $PETSC_DIR directory it will print a nag at most once every 24 hours. Otherwise it will print a nag every time they do a make with the PETSc makefiles. Is it not working for you?

  Barry


> (Matt, I remember your fieldsplit slides where you say that students only install at the beginning of your PhD, then work entirely with options). For those who configure frequently, a regular update is part of the work flow anyway. So, who really benefits from nagupgrade?
> 
> Best regards,
> Karli
>