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this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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If something critical (lives) life depends on some software working, they probably should’ve always been recommending that people disable major .0 updates. That’s systems administration 101.
True but it’s also on the doctor, pharmacist, and especially the vendor to communicate it to patients. Patients aren’t sysadmins and can’t be expected to know what sysadmins do.
That said, it’s also on the app developer to make sure their app works on release day. And that’s especially true for critical apps.
Looking into this a bit more, it looks like both of the use cases they’re concerned about are pretty edgecase-y.
They’re worried about users not getting glucose notifications. And the user has to intentionally turn off notifications in a settings panel for one use case, and for the other use case, a caregiver must intentionally opt into a hidden accessibility mode that is literally designed to turn a smart phone into a dumb phone.
This smells like the Abbott legal team is being overly cautious.
I worked for a major (medical) company that would skip .0 releases, precisely to combat stigma and folks skipping it.
We did have one particularly bad release that we ended up telling folks to delay taking.
IMO, the real secret to most critical upgrades, and at the heart of skipping .0 releases, is to test in non-production, talk with super users and peers, and patch intentionally and quickly. If you have the resources.