[Bug 789596] Re: "Canonical doesn't provide updates" is a scary message, especially for customers

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

The text is:
- "Canonical provides critical updates for Empathy Internet Messaging until October 2012." (Main)
- "Canonical does not provide updates for Adobe Reader 9. Some updates may be provided by the third party vendor." (Partner)
- "Canonical does not provide updates for Padre. Some updates may be provided by the Ubuntu community." (Universe, Multiverse, Restricted)

The use case for the text is a business person or IT manager considering
using a particular package, and wanting to know if there's someone
accountable to issue updates for problems with that package.

The MOTUs do great work, but they're not accountable in that way. So I
think the "may be provided" text is not just correct, but also
appropriately discouraging for that use case. It is also difficult for
vendors to get updates into Partner, so "may be provided" is probably
appropriate there too, though less so. Do you have other suggestions for
how we could word those?

Once the developer portal is publicly available, application developers
will be accountable for updates, and it will be easier for them to issue
updates. So we'll be able to say, positively, "Updates for this software
*are* provided by the vendor" or similar.

** Changed in: software-center (Ubuntu)
       Status: Invalid => New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/789596

Title:
  "Canonical doesn't provide updates" is a scary message, especially for
  customers

Status in “software-center” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: software-center

  In the overview of software in Software Centre that does not come from
  the officially supported archives, a warning text is shown informing
  the user that this particular piece of software is not supported by
  Canonical, but that updates MAY be delivered by the community/a third-
  party. It is not only shown for software from community-maintained
  archvies or for PPAs, but also for software that is on sale.

  Although this message is factually correct, it is a scary message.
  Users might get the impression that by default no updates should be
  expected, but if you are lucky something might be done. Especially for
  paid applications, this might not be very encouraging towards users.

  I would suggest to change the warning from a negative formulation to a
  positive: updates for this software are provided by X. Not Canonical,
  etc.

  Furthermore, this message is also shown for packages from the
  Canonical Partner archive--which is maintained by Canonical, AFAI. Is
  that desired behaviour?

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
  Package: software-center 4.0.2
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-9.43-generic 2.6.38.4
  Uname: Linux 2.6.38-9-generic x86_64
  NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
  Architecture: amd64
  Date: Sat May 28 18:13:11 2011
  PackageArchitecture: all
  ProcEnviron:
   LANGUAGE=nl:en_GB:en
   PATH=(custom, user)
   LANG=nl_NL.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: software-center
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2010-11-13 (195 days ago)

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