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WiX Project Lead Interviewed On CPL Licensing
comforteagle writes "After Microsoft released WiX (Windows Installer XML) under the CPL I found it odd that so many interviews following were with almost everyone but the project lead. So, for your Friday enjoyment I've posted an interview with Rob Mensching, Wix Project lead, who sheds a little light on what's going on behind the scenes at the Shared Source Initiative from the ground." Mensching explains: "My bosses were not involved in the decision which license should be used for the Windows Installer XML toolset. I worked with members of the Shared Source Initiative team who understand the details of the various licenses available to share source code. They listened to my requirements and found that the CPL seemed most appropriate for the toolset."
How does this make Microsoft yet more evil?
Next time, ask around to see what a name means in other languages before you choose it for an international project... You don't want to name your project "WiX" in Germany.
Has Microsoft ever done ANYTHING that /. has approved of?
/. would find some nefarious plot behind that too.
I sure if MS released the source code to Windows 2003 under the GPL tomorrow
-Cecil
For anyone wondering, this is basically an XML wrapper for the MSI.
MSI files are binary databases that you had to edit with a nasty tool called oracle. The whole thing was counter intuitive. I could never understand why the MSI wasn't XML based from the start. It was written when MS was XML mad, after all.
This is brilliant. You can now work with a text source file format for the MSI.
Wix? Wichs? Wichsen?
The owls are not what they seem
What does it mean in German?
According to babel fish, it means nothing, so I'm guessing it's either slang or you're full of Scheiße
If linux and bsd are blond and brunett, which o.s. is the redhead.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Mensching: "I am not well versed in all of the licenses used by the Shared Source Initiative. As I described above, I went to the Shared Source Initiative team with the goals of my project and we agreed that the CPL was an appropriate license for the Windows Installer XML toolset."
Other types of shared source license programs at Microsoft, and further links in the Shared Source Initiative.
MSI installation on windows is a huge step up from the old setup.exe situation, but it isn't that often used.
What I'd really love to see on windows is something where windows tracked the 'lineage' of every file (and reg key) on the system. So, when you want to get rid of a program, you're able to remove everything the program touched, save files you've copied over to another location.
It's easy to get software installed on windows, now they need to work on a method to get everything removed, especialy spyware...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This is being handled by M$ in a most interesting way; most likely all be design. This is not (IMHO) a project that escaped from Redmond, they have a plan in mind. The question is - is this a "hip fake" to the OSS community to fool everyone while they finalize their master plan of world domination of all computers everywhere, or is it an example of M$ recognizing the value of OSS and using it when it makes sense?
but it's gonna take a while for me to justify moving away from Nullsofts windows installer.
1) Release your stuff under an almost, but not quite Free license.
2) Be able to say 'look we are so cool and open source', but without actually giving anything important away.
3) Profit.
Mod parent up!!
but Orca
MSI installation on windows is a huge step up from the old setup.exe situation, but it isn't that often used.
I guess you're thinking in terms of home software and games then. The PCs I set up for our office network have very few apps that aren't MSI-based... AV, Office, accounting software, image editor, PCAnywhere all use the Windows Installer.
The only real problem with MSI is when a PC crashes during an install and after reboot you can't use the installer because it believes it's already doing an installation. Not a common problem but I've seen it happen.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
What will this mean for me?
Will open sourcing MSI result in smaller foot print, more flexible windows installer? a tthe moment I use the installer package made by Nullsoft, primarily because its less bloated and gives me more control over what I want. I don't need full screen pics when I'm installing an application and if I can do away with this using MSI it would be great!
Last question in the interview: "Are you an evil minion bent on destroying the opensource community?"
"They listened to my requirements and found that the CPL seemed most appropriate for the toolset."
So you needed a license model that does NOT allow sharing between REAL open licenses but looks open enough. Combined with the trivial piece of code attachted to it make up out of probable completely generic pieces of code ) that will let you sue the pants of the OSS community in a couple of years ????
Reminds me of those nice war scams where model villages are set up to show the UN that there are no numan rights violations at all.
" you see sir ? Everybody is treated well and you can see it ! , are we not good ???"
-- forget
Making your own MSI for apps you want deployed via policy on a business network is the one of the only ways you are going to get them installed, short of going to each machine with a cd and installing manually. That works just fine with about 10 machines, mabey 1,000 if you are a university with access to interns who will work cheap... but when you push higher than that in the private sector you are wasting a LOT of time an money.
stuff
I write in C#. Yes I confess. It's a highly productive language, and implements a lot of what Java didn't (e.g. foreach, Enums). I release under GPL, which means I can't use VS.NET because the license explicitly forbids it.
So I use #Develop and more recently Mono Develop. Problem is, unlike VS.NET there's no package deployment option to speak of (unless you write your own).
This project means that scripts can be generated from the GUI and then compiled using the C# candle tool provided in WiX. Enabling C# packages to be deployed on GPL.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
Thing is, smegma is an international term for manliest cheese of all. It's medical latin.
so I think those crazy smeg folks are just a bunch of weirdos.
--
Hmm... making an MSI isn't that bad. Most larger corporations probably have something like MS-SMS, ECM, etc., or even some scripting written for domain controller login scripts.
SMS and ECM can certainly be used to "push" new applications and uninstall old ones on network clients... So can a simple VBScript (using TqcRunas.dll...). I know, because I wrote one that pushed an IE5/6 security patch on about 1000 desktops via the domain login script...
...there's so many languages, you're bound to run into some bad word, or that is homothetic to some bad word. For instance, Ford introduced a car model called Fitta, which in Norwegian would be like "Ford Cunt". Their slogan was "Small on the outside, large when you get inside". Now for a car, that might not be such a bad slogan... They renamed it Honda Jazz here, but I think they still use that name elsewhere.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
... it will be before MS patents "A method of sharing software source code freely"?
Maybe it's so when the courts try to force MS to open it's source in the coming decade, they can tell Congress
"It's wrong to call us closed source. We have had core features of our OS open sourced since 2004! On SourceForge, even!"
And I'd like to see all the Swiss Germans yelling "Chummt der Sprutz?" (does it come...) when the install some MS software. :)
Of course, some MS software might be "spritzig" and geeks in Germany might have to redefine "Eine gespritzte Schorle"....
I know most /.'s will find this hard to believe but M$ has always provided a huge amount of source code in an open source fashion. Just visit MSDN and you'll see of examples of free sample code. Then go to the code center where you can find tons of free demonstration applications that you can use to build your own app. For example the company I work for has used User Interface Process Application Block for .NET and Exception Management Application Block for .NET from their patterns and practices site to form the basis of an Enterprise scale business application. Of course the code is generally sample applications for Business purposes. But code like this has been available from M$ since before the internet boom.
There are all kinds of quirks especially with office. One that I hate is that office insists on keeping track of where it was installed FROM. If you ever move that directory it acts goofy and slows down. If you try to reinstall it refuses. What you have to do is to dig throgh the registry and wipe out all memory of the first install so you can reinstall.
evil is as evil does
msiexec /regserver fixes this.
no wonder they found Lindows to be too similar to Windows, they even miss-spell GPL to be CPL
IANAL, but after reading the license it is created to compete with GPL:
1. It chooses the name "Common" Public Licence hoping that a lot of developers will use it.
2. It forces source code of the derived work to be licensed by the CPL. i.e you cannot fork a CPL project under the GPL.
Basically, I see it as the "forced BSD" or "anti-GPL".
Mod parent up and thus mode slashdot down. Slashdot credibility is way below zero. Slashdot become so stupid that, I think anybody referring to slashdot should be shot at sight or kicked out of the company. What an idiot.
3) Profit by releasing your code under CPL.
Only slashdot types give a shit about "Be able to say 'look we are so cool and open source'" What the fuck does that mean? You think businesses or home users think that it is cool to be open source. Open source is not cool, it is basically communism. I don't think being a communist is cool.
What I'd really love to see on windows is something where windows tracked the 'lineage' of every file (and reg key) on the system. So, when you want to get rid of a program, you're able to remove everything the program touched, save files you've copied over to another location.
I have seen such a piece of software, but alas, I never got the name, and never used it myself. It was able to present a report of everything modified during an install, and offered a way to 'rewind' the system to before any given install. Basically it replaced the whole Add/Remove Programs dealy with something that didn't rely on sloppy (or in the case of spyware, malevolent) programmers cleaning up after themselves.
A weakness, though, was two software packages that touched or updated the same DLLs.
A long-winded manual way to do it yourself is to use Microsoft's SYSDIFF tool, or if you feel generous enough to write up a program to do it, check out the tools on sysinternals.com. It is possible to track every registry access, and every disk access (file level or physical level).