< Desktop | Whiteboards
Out current package-centric view of software installation and updates is less than ideal.
We really want to let users easily find, install and deinstall applications, not packages.
Most non-nerdy users are not interested in learning about updates to a million tiny packages they have never heard of. It would be much better to represent everthing that is not an application update as a catch-all 'system update'.
To get this, we need to differentiate between applications and system components, and treat updates for these differently. Installing application updates should be at the users discretion, but updates system components may happen automatically (at least by default) and in way that minimizes interruptions to the user (install them when the system is idle, at shutdown, etc)