Richard Kimberly Heck wrote: > >>> Average user can misunderstand it with a probability of 50%. Those who > >>> misunderstood it and denied the update can end up with an unusable LyX. > >> > >> No, they do not. If they deny, then NOTHING HAPPENS. > > > > Damn, that is not true! > > I am saying something very simple, and it clearly is true, so please > read this carefully.
As far as I could understand Uwe's point, "something happens if MiKTeX is not updated", so in his view canceling initial dialog is breaking existing install (due to future's internal MiKTeX update), though technically nothing will happen from LyX installer side. The breaking point really is his insistance that users shouldn't know what LaTeX means and therefore no initial dialog being possible. In no way I do belive that it's possible to reasonably work with LyX without knowing anything about LaTeX, since one will be done in the first compilation error or when tweaking something in output is necessary (how many of your documents ended without single ERT or document header? -- just look at flagship manuals.). Thus I also do not agree that we should sacrifice users who know what MiKTeX to those who do not, because these will never make majority of our users. It's kind of new philosophy, that anyone who knows what 'LaTeX' means should be considered 5% 'expert' minority in LyX userbase and should be treated at the expense of those who know do not know. Nevertheles I agree with Uwe that in a normal world users indeed do not care about software internals and let develepers to 'serve' them. What was somehow missing in that picture was that in normal world this is not religious service but it it brings back the profit which in turn allows the developers to spend full-time to fix all the user troubles. Our model is different - we survive not through money but through flow of advanced users who might later become devs in their spare time. In such case it's kind of suicidal for LyX itself to change the philosophy and treat them as a second class citizens, really. Triggering unconfirmed setup updates in their software install is something which advanced users indeed can fix but but it can be huge PITA when they are in the middle of production work, can make them quite angry and decent software should not do it. As mentioned earlier Windows 10 indeed did forced updates, what was not somehow mentioned was the following uproar in the community, millions dolar lawsuits and finally Microsoft pledges that they won't do it again. To sum up no one believes that forced upgrades is a good thing to do (including the cited Windows case or even the MiKTeX developer). If Uwe can't make any compromise and make small courtesy for more advanced users in the initial dialog then it seems better to me to use less advanced installer which Riki tries to build now and put it as the official one on the web. Pavel
