Re: Windows and DLLs

[The Doctor What <docwhat gerf org>]

On Sat, Oct 03, 1998 at 11:05:12AM +0200, Nils Philippsen wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Oct 1998, David Jeske wrote:
> > Then he installs it himself, or they both ask the administrator to put
> > it in a public location. Or the first user makes his app directory
> > publicly readable.
> 
> Given the typical user is as communicative as I experienced in my time
> being an admin (I'm still one, it's still fun :-) In a system with say
> more than 100 users there will be at least 20 version of a certain app
> floating around in the users' homes before anyone even thinks about
> asking the admin to install it. This is a messy situation that I don't
> want to have (think of disk space, helping the users with various
> different version of which you don't even know that they exist). Oh, and
> I'd like to have a little control of what's installed on "my" systems. At
> least Joe Random User (!= Hacker) won't be playing around with 3733t hax0r
> t00ls when it doesn't come in a shrink wrapped install wizard like
> package (yeah, this would be the worst scenario (the d00des won't shrink
> wrap this, hopefully), but think of a netscape communicator ("but it's
> the latest beta version - I need this!") in every home directory -- disk
> space is valuable). 

I can see your point, but if every app came encapsulated with an easy to
identify signature, you can track what apps are on the system (and
versions, too!).  Using a find once a night or week, you can generate a
list of apps users have installed (and your own apps, too).  Then you can
even generate email saying to the users, "We already have version foo.x of
app bar, please use it."  Or have messages sent to you when more than x
copies of the same app are installed in user directories.

Think about the Netscape-beta problem.  If every user (or a large enough
portion) want netscape-beta, install it in a beta test area for them.
Then you get one copy, it's under your management (or not if you just
install and forget), and the users are happy.

Plus, no package system (whether it's tarball-source or
super-neato-keenbean-install-o-matic) will prevent users from installing
what they want.  You control that via permisions and quotas.  In other
words, package management (or the lack thereof) isn't the right tool to
prevent these problems.

Ciao!
docwhat@gerf.org