Re: GSoC project about binary packaging

[John W. Eaton]

On 07/09/2013 12:37 PM, Michael Goffioul wrote:

> AFAIK, yes. There is nothing wrong with NSIS, but Patrick raised the
> concern that NSIS generates executable installers, while WiX generates
> MSI file; and that MSI files might be the only type of installer allowed
> in corporate locked-down environment.

OK.  I'm not personally worried about this at the moment, but I can
see that it could be a problem in the future if more people move away
from self-contained executable installers.

> Personally, I'm fine with both (though I don't know WiX), except if WiX
> requires to install Platform SDK in order to have customized UI in the
> installer.

Looking at http://wixtoolset.org and and in particular
http://wixtoolset.org/releases/v4-0-701-0 does not give me a warm
happy free software feeling.  The software is distributed as a .exe
file, so I guess it runs only on Windows systems?  And there is this
note:

  WiX v4.0 source code for debugging purposes. Note: this source code
  will not build.

??

For me, it is important that we are able to build the installer
package in a cross environment.  And preferably without having to use
Wine or run any kind of interactive tool.  I don't know if that is
how WiX works, but it is important to me to be able to generate the
installer from a script or Makefile rules without any user interaction
other than starting the build process.

jwe