I get that it's a way to make money.

But is restricting free 'ComfortUpdate's to one month really the best way to get acceptance, given that some of the updates are security ones?

Updates, especially security updates, should be simple and free, otherwise fewer people do them.

All manual updates are free : www.limesurvey.org/editions-and-prices/l...and-prices-community
And you can set an autoupdater with crontab (wget/unzip) or via git.

Its Confort that are not free.

Yes, I know that it's possible to do a manual update and I've done it. The point is that I shouldn't have had to.

Charge to make the site pretty (additional design templates etc), but don't charge to easily make it secure.

Sorry, I am totally for open source and everything.

But I find this criticism a little harsh. A couple of years ago, Limesurvey updates were always manual and everyone who hosted LS themselves updated manually.

Then someone did the job and created the comfort update and is charging for this additional feature of Limesurvey, which is not obligatory in any way to use the software freely and free of charge.

So you have the choice: you go the traditional way and update Limesurvey manually, which actually isn't too difficult (as many have done it during years) but of course takes a little bit more time than the comfort update, but at the end you have the same result.

If you don't want to spend the extra 10-15 min for the manual updates you should consider to subscribe to a comfort update plan. For 12 months I think it is 80 Euros, that means you would pay less than 8 Euros per month. Sounds acceptable to me, if you use Limesurvey quite frequently and the surveys are important to you.

Yes, I know that it's possible to do a manual update and I've done it. The point is that I shouldn't have had to.

But the developers have to provide you with everything free of charge? You are already getting an excellent piece of software, free of charge. Now the comfort update is a comfort function. You pay for your comfort and for not having to spend the extra time. Sounds fair to me. Because you can still use the full software, all features and the updates are available to download freely. They are easy to install, it just takes a little time.

I have nothing to do with Limesurvey GmbH who is providing the comfort update, but from my experience it is worth the money for the added comfort you are getting. But of course, everyone has a different point of view what is worth what. However, as you are already getting free software, I find it rather strange to complain about the comfort update costing money.

holch wrote: …
But the developers have to provide you with everything free of charge?
…

All people know FLOSS developers live on love alone .

Not the case for other developers …

Can anyone find any worthwhile source saying that it's a good idea to make security updates harder for people to install?

Because I can't.

DenisChenu wrote: And you can set an autoupdater with crontab (wget/unzip) or via git.

Unless I am missing something - which is quite possible - doing it via wget is made harder by the way that the latest version has an unpredictable name, containing the build number/date as well as the version number, and there isn't the equivalent of WordPress's latest.zip

Plus you need to have a cron job check because unless you look at the right place in the menu tree / the limesurvey.org site, it doesn't tell you that there is an update.

It looks like I will need to learn git, sigh.

Can anyone find any worthwhile source saying that it's a good idea to make security updates harder for people to install?

It hasn't been made harder. It is still as easy or hard as it was before. Only now you can make it easier if you pay for the comfort update. If you don't, it is as easy/hard as it has been before.

the equivalent of WordPress's latest.zip

Oh, how I hate that WordPress calls that file "latest.zip". Because it says nothing about the version that I have in my download folder...

By the way, if you want to reach someone who could actually do something about this, get in touch with the developers of the Comfort Update, the Limesurvey GmbH.

Here in the forum you'll mostly find users and volunteers, that have nothing to do with the Limesurvey GmbH and their offers (Limesurvey Pro and Comfort Update).

holch wrote: Oh, how I hate that WordPress calls that file "latest.zip". Because it says nothing about the version that I have in my download folder...

The idea behind latest (which is not an invention of Wordpress devs) is, that you can have a URL to the file, which always provides you the latest available file (without the need that you have to look up the version numbers). Just download via wordpress.org/download/releases/ to have the version numbers in the filename.

If i remind : there are already a feature request in mantis about release must be done in github.com/LimeSurvey/LimeSurvey/releases
(then can create a updater with cron).

Have some way to have 'Last version' + allow donwload can be great, but it's LimeSurvey GMBH choice.

jelo wrote: The idea behind latest (which is not an invention of Wordpress devs) is, that you can have a URL to the file, which always provides you the latest available file (without the need that you have to look up the version numbers).

I know why they do it, but it was still annoying for me (I never did automatic downloads), not knowing what version of wordpress the "latest.zip" was. But I wasn't aware of the other link. Will use that one instead then.