Re: [platform-update-dev] Question about update on multi-user systems

["Alex Blewitt" <alex.blewitt@xxxxxxxxx>]

Is there any sensible reason why this isn't the default? It seems that
most multi-user systems would need the configuration area to be read
only, and that that works just as well for single-user platforms as
well. It would also mean that you don't have to have admin rights to
update where Eclipse is installed (which is the case even on some
Windows platforms, such as when it's on a network share) and the
fallback behaviour if it can't write (or if it's been configured to be
read-only) is to create it in the user area anyway.

I've never really understood why that hasn't been the default all
along; the only reason why not is if you have multiple installs of
Eclipse on the same box with the same workspace (and that's a
discouraged practice, anyway). Even if you've got multiple different
installs of Eclipse products (e.g. IBM RAD, Eclipse ...) then each of
those gets its own workspace so they still wouldn't clash.

IMHO it's things like this which will improve the apperance of Eclipse
as an RCP outside of the IDE space. For example, the Mac app has
plugins and features at a top-level in an un-Mac like location, which
only really serve extensible IDEs and just look rubbish in an RCP app.
It would be good if the platform took those kind of things into
account by default instead of configurable extras :-)

Alex.