should executables be permitted to update themselves?

["Michael Gilbert" <michael.s.gilbert@gmail.com>]

hello,

is there a policy on whether an executable is permitted to update itself?  i personally believe that in order to maintain the security of the system, apt and apt alone should be used to install software updates.  recently i submitted a bug on azureus about how it should not urge users to install updates outside of apt (
http://bugs.debian.org/405997), which was quickly closed by the maintainer.  his reasoning was that users should be given the choice of using apt or the built-in updater.  was this bug handled correctly?

thank you for any thoughts.

mike