Automatic updates may be a good thing in event of, for example, security problems.

However, as an administrator and developer, I need to be able to determine who else (i.e. which user groups) get to see the information that an update is required (I want to approach my clients and not have them come running to me). I also need to have the ability of postponing an update as long as I want. (e.g. till I know it's reasonably bug free).

I do not think XOOPS could allow itself the mess that the Mozilla people have. If I have a crucial Moz. plugin (lets say the calender for Thunderbird), after an update to the main application (Thunderbird) my plug-in may be automatically disabled for days, or even weeks if the plug-in developer is busy, until a compatible update has been released. Whilst this may be acceptable for trivial plug-ins, it is a disaster for anyone wanting to install a 'mission-critical' plug-in such as a calender.

To translate this problem back to a CMS scenario, I could not accept the risk of an important module (say my forum) being automatically switched off because of a compatibility issue.

Before letting an automatic CMS update take place, I need to know reliably which modules are going to be incompatible with this update, so that I can decide whether I am prepared to do without these modules.

Alan

Well Alan, maybe upgrades should only be possible when all modules are already certified, so that an upgrade is impossible when these modules that are active at that moment aren't certified. So you won't have the risk of having your forum switched off.

Vamptrix,

if I understand what you mean correctly, it would mean that before an update of the CMS was released, the module developers would get the chance to get their modules certified for the new version.
I don't think this could be expected to work.
After a typical Firefox update, I'd say that half of my plug-ins no longer work, and I can't see XOOPS being any different.

As we see from the Mozilla systen, compatibility (which I see as being equivalent to validated certification) needs to be version dependent.
As site administrator, I need to have control.

Having said that, an auto-update system could wait until certified versions of all modules installed on a site were available before going ahead with a CMS update. Which, then again might not be so good for an update in the event of a major security leak.

Alan

If it can be deactivated without hacking anything, yes, I vote for

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There you're right, I've been running Firefox 3 since beta 3, and it works fine, and all of my addons are working now too, as Firefox 3 is released now, much will follow. What I mean is that the beta's would be released for developers in about 2-3 weeks before the public stable release so that developers can make their module certified. And ofcourse, you should be able to turn this off. But a smiliar system that tells you about updates is available in SMF, and that system works perfectly and you choose to update. You have control, and I think, as far as I read this topic, that this will be a module, so you can easily delete it as an administrator (like the default installation of ThAdmin in XOOPS 2.3), so your costumers/users won't complain. And ofcouse, this system should be tested pretty well before being released, as this could bring several security leaks with it.

And Hervet, I do hope you can deactivate it :)

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So people will upgrade XOOPS and - if it isn't 'certified' - their favourite module will stop working.

Nothing new there then.

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Well, that version for developers won't contain the certification system, and modules that ain't certified should continue to work, though maybe with a warning that it could contain errors or that it won't work good.

Actually this should be called "Xoops Certification System" not XOOPS License Keys, would scare other people and let them think that it's a paying cms :)

It scared me!