Carl Tyler's Blog :: A suggestion to IBM for Sametime update sites.

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Today it is possible to have built a plugin for 7.5.x that no longer runs in Sametime 8.x (Sametime didn't follow that Notes diehard rule of being backwards compatible), so you end up with two versions, one for Sametime 7.5.x users and one for Sametime 8 users.

That is a pain, but manageable, so here's my issue. Let's say that you've build a plugin that everybody is required to have, so you provision a Sametime update site that pushes out the plugin when people login (done through a policy and modifying a document in the STCONFIG.NSF). The problem is, there is no way in the udpate site to say this plugin is for st 7.5.x users only or ST 8.x users for example.

IBMs solution is to create different policies for different users, but that is tied to the user not the version of the software they run, so if they download a different client version, login at a machine with a different version they will get the wrong plugin. In update sites it is possible to say this plugin requires a certain OS etc. They should have a similar option for client version required.

Please IBM, think about your enterprise software and how enterprises would like to deploy software.

Comments

1 - Humorously we brought this up during the roll9ut of 7.5.1 if you remember

Posted by Chris Miller At 12:47:27 PM On 02/27/2008 | - Website - |

2 - We handle this but making sure that we modify the feature in the update site to target specific features in the existing client. We identify a version of a specific feature (like imhub) and make sure that the feature only works on a client that has that version. Works fine for us though something more flexible would be much better.

Posted by Brett van Gelder At 03:43:37 PM On 02/27/2008 | - Website - |