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Right now, updating full nodes is completely manual, and the network is essentially made up of the consensus of the node software.

As big changes come in the future to the protocol, how will the network manage updates? For example, one potential solution to the number of IOTA tokens is to increase supply, which I imagine will require a node update. However, by that time, IOTA will be very mature and will have possibly hundreds of thousands of nodes that will need to agree on that change and update to new software.

Disregarding rogue actors, what will IOTA do about irresponsible / lazy nodes that do not update their software? Is there a solution to this problem? Why doesn't IOTA have automatic updates, or at least automatic update alerts? Even now, there are tons of node operators with little technical know-how that may not be on the latest version of the software.

aboose
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    Interesting (future) problem. There are tons of solutions for that out there. The real question is how a system that has to be decentralized by definition handles that. Otherwise all the security is gone if I can just hack the update server. – Helmar Dec 20 '17 at 18:03

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The amount of Iota tokens is fixed. It will not increase. There's only one thing which can potentially happens: A shift of the decimal number. But this doesn't increase the supply. Everyone gets a zero to his amount.

But yes, I agree, the upgrade process is shit. Also the cronjob one. You have still many issues with your neighbors. I would like to have a solution where the software fetches the upgrades/updates by itself. I created a feature-request in the github repo for this issue: https://github.com/iotaledger/iri/issues/425 Like it, so the developer see that this is a real issue.

Citrullin
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