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I live in fear of OTA bricking of devices. Automatic updates have huge pros, but also huge cons that are not being properly addressed by most vendors. IMO the
by awinter-py 7y ago
I live in fear of OTA bricking of devices.
Automatic updates have huge pros, but also huge cons that are not being properly addressed by most vendors.
IMO the biggest difference in software now vs 1995 is the ability to incrementally upgrade pieces of it w/ limited user interaction (this is true for consumers and for programmers who are using a library / docker base layer).
Automatic updates are probably responsible for a non-trivial portion of our economic growth. It's worth creating better tools to make them safe & transparent.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago> Automatic updates are probably responsible for a non-trivial portion of our economic growth. It's worth creating better tools to make them safe & transparent. How can they be, if by definition they don't involve paying extra for them, so they have no impact on economic growth metrics themselves? As for proper addressing, I'd love if either an industry custom or a legal requirement would exist that would make vendors unbundle security updates from feature updates. There were plenty of situations in my life where I purposefully disabled automatic updates of software precisely so that it doesn't accrue bloat or the modern art projects that pass as UIs these days.
- michaelt 7y agoPerhaps awinter-py thinks automatic updates have prevented economic losses that would otherwise have happened.
- awinter-py 7y agoAutomatic updates increase the value of software by: 1. allowing companies to charge monthly for 'always fresh' software / services 2. adding free baseline features to OSes and open libraries, and fixing bugs. These improvements are bundled into paid products or used directly to increase productivity or standard of living.