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> It could be argued that the existence of an OTA mechanism incentivizes lower quality (RTM patches) Is there any evidence of this? I think of automatic update

• teacup50 11y ago
  > Does the presence of those things change how acrobats or drivers perform? Yes. They change the risk analysis; this can make the difference between acrobats performing at all. As a thought experiment, just consider what you know about human nature and incentivisation of behavior. Do humans tend to: 1) Prioritize long term concerns over short term concerns? 2) Prioritize high -- but incremental -- costs to others over costs to themselves? 3) Prioritize future risk amortized over many small events? 4) Prioritize costs that can be externalized onto others over their own costs? Quiet OTA updates play to all of those weaknesses. The only possible result, as long as humans are involved, is lower quality software.
  • rhelmer 11y ago
    Thought experiments are fun, but I am coming to a different conclusion. I agree that it changes the risk analysis, but I don't think that it's necessarily for the worse. Performance doesn't necessarily improve under pressure, and extreme risk aversion can cause some funny side effects - for instance working around known bugs rather than risk correcting them. Is there any data to support the "only possible result" that you conclude? Or, maybe examples of high-quality software that doesn't have any kind of high-frequency automatic update mechanism?