Update Manager / Broken Packages / X Failsafe

[Micah J. Cowan]

On Wed, Aug 23, 2006 at 10:21:03AM -0300, Hervé Fache wrote:
> Also, I wanted to say that I don't agree with those who say we
> couldhave messed a company's install or something similar: our
> competitorhas already done this sort of things, and serious companies'
> IT do notroll updates until they feel it's safe to do so (my previous
> one did).

I don't think it's wise to distinguish between "serious" companies and
others. Whether they are "serious"/careful is not at issue. Many tech
companies (especially those that tend to have employees running Linux
distros) will let their engineers take charge of their own desktops. For
such companies, a serious loss of productivity was surely a real threat.

At any rate, our users have a reasonable expectation that updates won't
suddenly break their systems. It doesn't feel right to simply say,
"Well, they just should've been more careful, is all."

And I can't think of any time in the remotely recent past when "our
competitor" has actually broken a system due to automatic upgrades...

My 2Â.

-Micah