Apt autoupdates

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 12:05 AM, Anders Karlsson <anders at trudheim.co.uk> wrote:
>  I am not 100% sure, as I don't currently have a Debian based system to
>  check with, but from memory, this is what a Debian based system
>  does, have a cronjob that does the nightly updates. If so, the apt
>  package in Fedora just does what upstream (Debian) does, and we track
>  upstream closely, right?

We follow upstream as closely as is reasonable.  Whether an automated
service should be turned on by default or not when a package is
installed is an issue that needs consideration on a service by service
basis.  Some services can be quite disruptive and when they are
included as part an of a more complicated package it may not make
sense to turn them on by default to reduce unexpected disruptions.

Having the apt autoupdate cronjob in question included in the same
binary package as apt itself may mean that it should be turned off by
default. But if it were packaged as a subpackage whose only purpose
was to install the autoupdate service onto your system, then it maybe
reasonable to turn it on by default.  User intent comes into play in
the calculation and if it can be argued that users commonly install
apt without needing or knowing about the autoupdate service that is
also included..then it should be disabled by default.

-jef"I'm personally in favor of making apt's default behavior as
disruptive as possible, to encourage people to stop using it on Fedora
systems"spaleta