Re: [stellation-res] Windows distribution file

["Mark C. Chu-Carroll" <mcc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 09:42, Dave Shields wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 16, 2002 at 07:19:39PM -0500, Jonathan Gossage wrote:
> > I have been thinking about the best format for the Windows distribution file
> > for Stellation. Basically there are three options:
> > 
> > 1. Produce a Windows installer file.
> > 
> > 2. Produce a .zip file.
> > 
> > 3. Produce a self-extracting zip file.
> > 
> > The pro's for option 1 are that this is a well understood format that is
> > tightly integrated with the Windows environment.
> > 
> > The major disadvantage is that either you need an expensive commercial
> > installer generation program or you are faced with a LOT of work to generate
> > a .msi file.
> > 
> > The main pro for option 2 is simplicity. Ant will readily generate a .zip
> > file. This is also the current distribution mechanism for Eclipse.
> > 
> > The main disadvantage is that you require Winzip installed on the machine to
> > get access to the contents of the .zip file. Winzip is frequently not
> > installed on servers which is where the server component of Stellation will
> > normally be installed. It also means that installation is a two step
> > procedure instead of a single step procedure.
> > 
> 
> 
> Jonathan,
> 
> According to the Stellation Installation document:
> 
>   Before you can use the system, you must install it.
>   We use Ant to install it.
> 
> Indeed, one of the reasons for using Ant is that it provides support
> for unpacking zip files, so you don't need Winzip if you have Ant.

Yes, but... The main reason we've used ant thus far is because we've
been too busy to look at any alternatives. If Jonathan and Ringo want
to take a stab at this, to make things easier for users, then I'm
all for it, and it makes sense for us to be involved in the discussion. 

None of us on the IBM team have time to help with this in anything
but an advisory mode. But if you guys want to do it, we'd be thrilled
to have a decent install process on windows. 

Eventually, we'll probably want to either do a similar install
under Linux, or put together an RPM. But that can wait until either
we have time, or we have volunteers...

	-Mark

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