Comment 194 for bug 332945

Jan Claeys: Google wanted Web apps to be able to put icons in the notification area in HTML 5. <http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-March/018722.html> That request has been turned down for now, but it's possible they'll attempt the same thing with browser extensions.

mac_v: People who prioritize keeping their system running as long as possible over installing restart-required updates will have that issue regardless of how Ubuntu asks them to restart.

ami_nakata: Not only is it an implementation detail whether an automatically-opening window is from a newly-running application or an already-running application, it's an implementation detail whether *any* window is from a newly-running application or an already-running application. Automatic window example: You and the other complainants in this bug report would be no happier about the updates-available window opening automatically if it was part of Nautilus (which was already running) than part of Update Manager (which was not). Manual window example: The "Settings" button in Update Manager opens a window that's powered by a separate application (Software Sources), but people don't care or need to care. For references on why just-in-time proactive help is better than passive help, see <http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2006-March/msg00248.html>. (Clippy was just a spectacularly poor implementation.) If it helps you understand the use cases for automatically opening windows, mentally replace the shorthand "the system needs to" with "people will benefit most if the system will". And we take the user's attention allocation very seriously; that was one of the themes of my presentation on the new notification system at UDS.

BUGabundo and Brian Curtis: The messaging menu is intended for messages from external agents, mainly humans. Using it for system stuff would confuse its meaning.