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I wouldn't know for sure with OS X, but I think it would be possible for an operating system to prevent applications from accessing administrator rights. I'm under the impression that OS X handles anything outside of the user directory itself, and doesn't allow applications to, like with the standard OS X installer. Even with sudo. It wouldn't be any use for an application to get an administrator's password if the OS doesn't accept passwords from applications, but rather from direct user input only. I'm just completely guessing, though. It's just my impression. The Vise X installer seems to bypass OS X's standard installation process, but maybe it is extremely restricted and still has to use the OS X installation process at the code level. As for administration tools, I guess they are actually part of OS X, so they don't have the limitations of regular applications.

Thus Aladdin took full advantage of the openness of the ZIP format for so long, for compatibility, but used closed formats to keep competitors away for Mac-specific files. It is somewhat ironic, then, that they are complaining about ZIP becoming closed when people have certainly complained in the past about their format being closed.

--Knots;

Wouldn't it be cool to include ALL OS's? Not just the *NIX's (getting one package manager to correctly handle both BSD and Linux is a complicated task as it is), but Mac, Windows, etc?

I don't know whether you'd ever get all the *NIXes to adopt one package format (heck, not even all of the *NIXes that use the Linux kernel use the same package format, so far; is it even possible to generate an RPM that works, for a given instruction-set architecture, on all distributions that use RPM?).

It's probably even more unlikely that you'd get Windows, or MacOS Classic (MacOS X might be considered "one of the *NIXes", although it may be different enough from other *NIX-flavored OSes that it'd be even less likely that it'd adopt some standard package format).

If they could get something that would reliably install stuff under Win2K (InstallShield really doesn't cover it),

It might be possible to have tools such as Easy Software Product's Package Manager (as mentioned in another posting; ESP are the folks who do CUPS) work with various non-*NIX packaging tools, as well as handling the various *NIX package formats it now handles (debs, RPMs, SVR4 packages, IRIX packages of some sort, HP-UX packages of some sort, source tarballs).

Some tools for packaging on Windows include MindVision's Installer VISE (available for Windows and MacOS), for which "qualifying shareware and freeware developers" can get a free license (it's what the GTK+ and GIMP for Windows uses), and Nullsoft's "SuperPimp" Install System, which is also free. (I've not used either of them, so I can't say how good or bad they are.)

and do compiling for makefiles (I don't even know if there is something to do makefiles in Windows anyway),

Well, there's a tool called nmake, which comes as part of a package called "Visual C++" from some company up in Redmond, Washington that has done some software for Windows; its makefiles aren't exactly like those for the various *NIXes (but those aren't all the same, either - you have System V make, Sun's make which is a superset of SV make, GNU make, Berkeley make, etc.).

It's not clear that it's a package manager's job to deal with the differences between the "make"s on various platforms.

Wouldn't it be cool to include ALL OS's? Not just the *NIX's (getting one package manager to correctly handle both BSD and Linux is a complicated task as it is), but Mac, Windows, etc?

I don't know whether you'd ever get all the *NIXes to adopt one package format (heck, not even all of the *NIXes that use the Linux kernel use the same package format, so far; is it even possible to generate an RPM that works, for a given instruction-set architecture, on all distributions that use RPM?).

It's probably even more unlikely that you'd get Windows, or MacOS Classic (MacOS X might be considered "one of the *NIXes", although it may be different enough from other *NIX-flavored OSes that it'd be even less likely that it'd adopt some standard package format).

If they could get something that would reliably install stuff under Win2K (InstallShield really doesn't cover it),

It might be possible to have tools such as Easy Software Product's Package Manager (as mentioned in another posting; ESP are the folks who do CUPS) work with various non-*NIX packaging tools, as well as handling the various *NIX package formats it now handles (debs, RPMs, SVR4 packages, IRIX packages of some sort, HP-UX packages of some sort, source tarballs).

Some tools for packaging on Windows include MindVision's Installer VISE (available for Windows and MacOS), for which "qualifying shareware and freeware developers" can get a free license (it's what the GTK+ and GIMP for Windows uses), and Nullsoft's "SuperPimp" Install System, which is also free. (I've not used either of them, so I can't say how good or bad they are.)

and do compiling for makefiles (I don't even know if there is something to do makefiles in Windows anyway),

Well, there's a tool called nmake, which comes as part of a package called "Visual C++" from some company up in Redmond, Washington that has done some software for Windows; its makefiles aren't exactly like those for the various *NIXes (but those aren't all the same, either - you have System V make, Sun's make which is a superset of SV make, GNU make, Berkeley make, etc.).

It's not clear that it's a package manager's job to deal with the differences between the "make"s on various platforms.

And I mean this not just in regard to installers and packages, but everything.

And no, I'm not proposing that what we need to do is make Linux look more like Windows or the MacOS.

But there are problems that others have solved and we can draw on their solutions, even if we can't use their source code.

(Even when I was working at Apple I would tell people about stuff from SunOS or Linux that I thought would go good in the Mac - they wouldn't hear of it).

I think an indicator of the problem we face in trying to bring Linux to the desktop was when I was corresponding with RMS about things I thought would be helpful to the users and I suggested an installer. He replied "What's an installer?"

The best installer I've ever come across on any platform, both to create packages with and for the user to install products with is Mindvision Vise.

It would be worthwhile to find a friend with a Mac and download it, and make a little toy installer that installs SimpleText and a readme file to try it out (you can download it for free - the installers created with it complain that you've lifted it until you get a valid serial number. It is possible to get a serial for free for installers for freeware).

It beats the living hell out of anything I've seen for Linux.

BTW - if you want to see an installer that really blows, check out PackageBuilder/Software Valet for the BeOS. The thing drove me to distraction. It wasn't just the way it would corrupt the data in my archives or crash while users were installing my software with it.

What really drove me nuts is that it had no concept of updating an installer when I had built new software to go in it.

With vise you just drop your new files in the folder next to your installer project and tell it to update. It gives you a list of files that have changed and you can approve or disapprove of updating them (or deleting the ones that are now missing).

PackageBuilder requires you to delete the old file from the installer project, which loses its settings, then you have to go and add your file back in and reset your settings. This is probably the number one reason for every time I've been reluctant to release a new version of my software on the BeOS - I enjoy programming it but I hate the damn installer.

Previous hacks include using Open Firmware to play Breakout (or was it MacsBug? somebody else remember?), a hack to program the LED display on the Apple Network Server 500 (one of the most obscure pieces of equipment ever shipped by Apple), a hack to render a Mac screen in ASCII text in realtime, and other jems.

The best part: usually, after a month or two, they bundle up all the hacks for that year and stick them on a CD-ROM, along with (in almost all cases) source code. You can usually download them as well. Last year's CD is available here courtesy of MindVision.

It's always funny to see READMEs that specifically advise you NOT to run the accompanying software, not to mention how many end with something along the lines of "I'd tell you more about how this works, but I only have 10 minutes until I have to demo it and it still isn't compiling, so you're on your own..."

Maybe.

Maybe not.

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