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 Hello all,
I'm thinking the its time to dig out of the weeds/details and make this a more meaningful discussion for everyone. I'll do my best to avoid excessive verbiage, as well as keep the my "soap box" stances to a minimum.

Charles M (the Original Poster - OP) thought that a better install update mechanism was needed. The discussion likened this to what Mozilla is doing for Firefox, et al. Now, examples and comparisons aside, many expressed thoughts that this was a much needed feature. However, there were some differences realized in how this could be achieved for the different OS platforms (e.g. Unix|Linux|Windows).

Unfortunately, AFAICR only one Mac user identified them self and commented on this topic. So apologies to the Mac User crowd (I now you're out there somewhere) ;-)

So,lets start with the Unix|Linux crowd:
-> Package Maintainers (I like 'specialists' but let's use the term people recognize) can build and distribute both installs and updates to different OS users. We are respecting the OS and working on the OS in a way with which people get taught/learned/accustomed to use the OS.

Q01) Can we have repositories for LibO packages? (e.g. deb - apt.documentfoundation.org or rpm.documentfoundation.org)

The idea about having a repository does not have to be permanent solution, but would allow downstream maintainers to pull/mirror packages for their OS community. LibO (and by extension DF) would gain credibility and good will in the community. We can start to build rapport and lines of communication with the PTBs in the different OS groups. Just a thought.

Q02) If there are people in the community that are good at this, would it be a bother for them put up the binary packages to the documentfoundation.org servers?

Q03) Could extensions be lumped in with this topic? (to ensure future OOo extensions don't cause LibO grief as the two projects start to diverge)

One last point I should make here - once a user installs a package, normally that user should continue to update via package management (dpkg, apt, yum, et al.) However, OOo and post-divergence LibO has a built-in updating mechanism. Great for Windows users but lousy for others where superuser/root permissions are required.

Q04) How hard would it be to pull out the Update Mechanism and make it a stand-alone program? (before everyone jumps to 'reply' - let me talk about Windows - this question will then become self-evident)

For the Windows crowd:
The current install is, to put it mildly, less than desirable. Negative comments were made about how the current installer on Windows behaves. These, IMHO, were fair and critical observations.

Q05) Can the current install be cleaned up?
Users cited having left over files on the desktop and not being aware that one has to uninstall the old version to install the later version (big PITA in my books).

Q06) Do we have people that can work on the Windows Installer?

Now...as for my left over question above...I believe that a separate 'Update Mechanism' independent of LibO would be a boon for a variety of reasons. -- OS specifics of update and networking could be pulled out of the main LibO development.
-- It would remove the problems of corrupting an install if not a superuser
(packaged LibO wouldn't have separate updater program for Unix|Linux or if it was disabled by an ADMIN) -- a separate update program could then 'check-in' with the servers (once a week, once a month) to verify if updates are available (get permission from the user to shut down the current LibO instance, update, then start LibO back up) -- and the really cool idea...plays into Charles' idea of enterprise installation.
A separate install program that is:
- scriptable ( can install/update many computers via a script)
- allows local or remote repositories to be identified
( a corporate IT Admin downloads behind his/her firewall and users update from that local store rather than reaching out to the internet)

Q07) Does this seem a useful way to push into enterprise/group usage of LibO?

Q(rhetorical)) Am I dreaming in Technicolor/Panavision or just 720p HD?

I would very much like to hear from the community on this one (and you Mac users - don't be shy).

Regards,
Scott Furry
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