Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 30th Jul 2008 21:56 UTC, submitted by peskypescado
I have written about if before: updating programs on your computer - if you're not using a Linux distribution, that is - is a total and utter mess. On Windows and Mac OS X, there are roughly four ways of updating applications. The application notifies of new updates, and then downloads them when you click 'yes', the application updates from within the application itself, or the application requires a special update program running in the background. These are all quite annoying, since they interfere with your workflow (as opposed to, say, running "apt-get upgrade" every morning). The fourth method is the official vendor channel, Windows/Microsoft Update in Windows and Software Update in Mac OS X. Paul Ellis argues that to alleviate the mess, Microsoft should open up Microsoft Update for everyone else - and similar arguments are made concerning Apple's Software Update.
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Member since:
2008-07-30
Use the same method as Eclipse. During installation each program would register itself with the Update Program. Then when Update Program was run, it would go out to each site and check for updates.
This isn't a very hard way to do things. It would leave the user with only having to run/schedule a single update program. MS wouldn't need to cache all the updates nor would the programs have to by certified.
The list of update locations could also be managed via an utility to allow the user to see where updates are being pulled from.
This is also the same way some Linux distributions work.