Distributions of Erlang-coded SW on Windows (really)

[Michael Turner]

>> What's the best way to distribute Erlang powered, proprietary and
>> non-proprietary, softwares?
>
>The best way is to have a product that is so awesome that people give
>you money even though you have fully it open source and receive
>patches to make it even more awestruck. Nobody can argue with that.

I can: I don't want to run "awestruck" software, I want to run
*awesome* software.  Last time I ran some "awestruck" software, I
ended up having to reboot.

Look, this was a serious question about packaging, not quality or, for
that matter, open source ideology.  And that should have been clear
enough from the context.  It's a question worthy of an answer.

Moreover, it matters.  I've heard it said that PHP began to beat out
some other serious contenders for server-side web scripting *not*
because it was clearly superior technology at the time, but simply
because it was packaged for ease of installation.  Packaging matters.

Packaging on the world's most commonly used platform matters even more. 
(No, I don't count TRON-over-ARM in my camera as a "platform".)

Windows is not going to vanish tomorrow.  It's probably got another 15
years in it.  Packaging Erlang-coded applications so that they seem to
be regular full-fledged Windows apps might smack of treason to some, but
it might also help push Erlang into the mainstream of programming
practice.  And I don't see how that hurts anybody here.

So if somebody has an actual *helpful* answer to these sorts of
questions, count me among the interested.  After all, I want real users
for what I write, and most of them will be on Windows, and I don't want
to ask too much of them, or they will go away.

"Write some awestruck software"?  Not a helpful answer.  We already
have too much awestruck software; if anything Erlang is a (partial)
solution to that problem.

-michael turner