[Off-topic] Re: Best windows installer?

[Romain Lenglet]

Ashok P. Nadkarni wrote:
> David Hopwood wrote:
> > Ashok P. Nadkarni wrote:
> >> InstallJammer (www.installjammer.com) is open-source,
> >> scriptable AND *cross platform* (Windows and Unix).
> >
> > Don't Windows and Unix users generally have quite different
> > expectations about how installation should work? I would
> > have thought that most Unix users prefer to use their
> > OS/distribution's package manager, rather than a standalone
> > executable installer.
>
> I've only used the Windows version so I'm not sure if the Unix
> installers produced by Installjammer are "compatible" with the
> native Unix methods.

It is not compatible with any Unix/Linux packaging system.
But that system may still be fine for Windows, though.



Just to be even more off-topic, I would like to repeat one point 
that I raised during the discussion thread related to packaging 
a few months ago.

Introducing a new packaging system, such as erlrt, is very fine, 
and very useful, especially to users of Windows and other OSes 
without a packaging system. But that packaging system must not 
be the only form into which an Erlang application is 
distributed.

"Upstream" developers of Erlang applications should still first 
distribute their applications is source code form with a simple 
build system (makefiles or whatever), and *additionally* and 
*optionally*, as ready-to-install packages (Debian packages, BSD 
ports, erlrt packages, auto-installers for Windows, etc.).
The imposed use of a particular packaging system by an upstream 
application developer would be a *pain in the ass* to some users 
(especially users of OSes that already have a good packaging 
system) and packagers.

I know that nobody recently suggested otherwise, but I feel 
paranoid these days, and just wanted to make a kind 
of "preventive rant". ;-)

-- 
Romain LENGLET