[vlc-devel] Future of the update mechanism

[Georg Seifert]

hello,

I do not completely get the excitement about wether use Sparkle or not.

 From the requirements and security is very close to the current  
approach with the big difference, that it works much nicer.

Just like now, it periodically asks the server if there is a new  
version. The user is asked on the second run of the software if he  
wants to allow the automatic check for updates.  If it finds a new  
version it asks the user if it should download and install it. Nothing  
is downloaded without the user noticing (except he explicitly says so).
Now, VLC just puts the archive on the desktop and you need to install  
it manually. This is very annoying.

The check for new version is recommended to use a secure connection,  
but it works also over simple http.

Sparkle needs no secure connection to download the data (so it could  
use mirrored servers). It uses a private/public key to sign and  
validate the archive. You do not need any ssl-certificate or anything  
like this.

As Felix said, most MacOSX users are familier with Sparkle as lots of  
other apps use it to.

So I really recommend the use of Sparkle. It works very well and is  
very easy to set up and maintain.

Regards
Georg