setup as a general purpose installer?

[Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc)]

At 12:55 AM 8/28/2001, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>It is with gritted teeth that I ask this question:
>
>Is anyone interested in discussing the issues in making setup
>into a general purpose installer?
>
>There are a few obvious issues in doing this.  I'm inclined to
>think that we should be getting setup.exe to work better as
>a cygwin installer rather than defocusing to ensure that it
>can easily install packages from other projects.  Either that
>or we scrap everything and move to rpm.
>
>However, I actually, do have a need to be able to use setup.exe
>internally at Red Hat with other "non-standard" mirror locations, so
>if/when I implement that, part of the problem will be rectified.
>
>Or, is it possible that by thinking more "globally" we might improve
>setup.exe's robustness?
>
>(I'm just grasping at straws really.  I've got very little interest
>in improving setup.exe on these lines but that doesn't mean it's
>not a good idea for someone else to take up)



I have mixed feelings about this as well.  I guess overall my feeling is
"now is not the time."  Adding more flexibility as a goal in the long
run doesn't obviously seem like a bad idea though.  I'm not sure that 
the specific situation that instigated this discussion or the proposed
patch for it really embodies the notion of making setup more flexible.  
It seems to me that it was just making setup be able to recognize yet 
another convention.  That would be a step backward IMHO.  So I'd recommend
keeping the idea on the table of adding flexibility to setup but figuring
out how and when to do this should be measured against the patches that
come in.  



Larry Hall                              lhall@rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      http://www.rfk.com
118 Washington Street                   (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
Holliston, MA 01746                     (508) 893-9889 - FAX