FWIW, I'm introducing a patch in the PETSc distribution in HashStack to disable this check from the Makefiles. I see the value of this being an opt-in check the user can run: `make info; make self-update`, but not an automated check unless the user opts-in at configure. That's the responsibility of the system/package manager, not a library.
A On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 11:21 PM, Karl Rupp <r...@iue.tuwien.ac.at> wrote: > Hi, > > There is a difference between a library and an end-user application. >> Having "updaters" for end-user applications seems to be the status quo >> on Windows and to a lesser extent on Macs, but is resented on Linux. >> Having a library do these checks is not okay anywhere. >> > > I remember a session at the Google Summer of Code where some guy from one > of the open source wikis shared his experiences with having embedded a > 'counter pixel' in a release. In short, his lesson learned was that any > kind of "phoning home" is an absolute no-go unless made *very* clear to the > users (plus opt-out). This was pre-Snowden, so many people are now much > more sensible with respect to these matters... > > Best regards, > Karli > >