Thought - Delay auto-updates of software to reduce downtime

[Brandon Holtsclaw]

On Monday 18 September 2006 22:14, Eric Dunbar wrote:
> One way to avoid that is to have staggered or delayed auto-updates,
> except for highly critical (and well-tested) security updates. I'm
> thinking two weeks, maybe more, along with a slightly random element
> built in to lower loads on update servers. The delay can be reduced or
> increased through a simple preference setting.

While this is a sounds to be a good idea I can see a couple of issues that 
would make this do more harm than good, let me explain a bit ...

First this would make support ( on the phone , irc, commercial, bugreports, 
etc etc etc ) a nightmare, imagine this senerio ( and wouldent be to 
uncommon ) ...

Support1: What version of <package> are you running ?

Joe: up-to-date as of NN-NN-NNNN, I just ran all my updates

Support1 <noting to self that dosent mean they have the latest package>: can 
you tell me the version number by running "<package> -v " ?

Joe: Version blah_134-0ubuntu2

1) Now how do you tell a user there is a fix in the archives but they cant 
have it becouse the updates are stagered 
2) once the "users" or most anyone finds out they can change this setting they 
have been branded to "always run the latest stable" and thus will lower the 
update threshhold to the minimum right away 
3) #2 would then create a false sense of "cushion" for those that push the 
updates thinking it will potentialy only affect N users if something is bad 
but in reality 80% or better has lowered their threshold to get the update 
right away.

Now I dont have all the right answers, and this idea does look to be 
promising , but as noted some things would have to be worked out. I think a 
better solution is going to be plain and simple QA with the updates, AND more 
use of the <stable>-proposed pockets , where a user has to turn the early 
updates ON and can be officialy not-supported etc etc etc, like we seen with 
the early oo.o updates

Just my 0.02c
CHeers
-- 
Brandon Holtsclaw
imbrandon at kubuntu.org
http://www.imbrandon.com