[KDE/Mac] Re: How to deploy KDE Applications on Mac OS X

[Bernhard Reiter]

Am Freitag, 1. Oktober 2010 15:01:21 schrieb Mike McQuaid:
> On 30 Sep 2010, at 19:30, Bernhard Reiter wrote:

> The point is that most OSX applications don't even use an installer. They
> just provide a bundle that you can drag-and-drop into the Applications
> directory. Macports, Fink and Homebrew are not universally used on Mac,
> they tend to be used mostly for power users and ex-Linux users who want to
> run commandline applications or Linux projects that haven't been ported
> properly to Mac.

Ah, Homebrew is new to me. 
(Again I do not know much about Mac "installation".)

http://abhinay.wordpress.com/2010/01/02/macports-to-homebrew-new-packaging-system-for-mac-os-x/
http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/

> > Given that Free Software on the Mac needs to catch on and that it has a
> > different characteristic than the proprietary software offerings on that
> > platform, I guess it would be okay that Mac Users will have to be
> > confronted with a package manager GUI, even when they only want a few
> > application. I guess they will end up with more, so this really promotes
> > Free Software.
>
> I don't agree that free software needs to catch on on Mac. I struggle to
> think of many large free software projects that aren't available on Mac.
> That vast majority of mainstream free software projects (e.g. Chrome,
> Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Eclipse, Adium, Qt Creator, Tweetdeck) do
> not require an installer. They are all distributed using drag and droppable
> UIs.
>
> I don't think this promotes free software at all, quite the opposite. I
> think this just risks splitting software into OSX OSS and Half-Completed
> Linux Ports, with the latter being in package managers.

You are essentially saying that the Fink, Homebrew and Macports people have 
been on the wrong track with many of their applications as they should have 
rather used CPack and build infrastructure for it. From the outside, they 
still are a bigger community than you are.

> > Nevertheless once we have established a significant Mac user base, I
> > think that now doing the rest of the polish into .dmgs, .apps, .pkg with
> > Sparkle or whatever, will be much more attractive compared to the other
> > improvement possibilities. We even might find funding for it.
>
> Packaging alone won't build a significant Mac user base. "The rest of the
> polish" here shares absolutely no code with the GUI installer approach, it
> will literally be a matter of completely throwing away the previous
> installers and reimplementing the packaging using the native tools you
> mention. Looking at the history of free software, this is only likely to
> fragment an already small KDE on Mac community.

Currently we do not have a significant developers community nor do we have a 
user community. As outlined in my other post, not being deeply involved, I am 
seeking for a big Free Software community and infrastructure that I can 
strengthen and be a part of. If we get macports or fink maintainers to buy 
into KDE applications via their "packaging" efforts, we win over more members 
that share the same source. Otherwise it looks like we are a far smaller 
group.

> I don't quite understand how, by your own admission, doing things an
> inferior way first will lead to a better end result. As I've said, there
> can be no worked shared between a Macports GUI installer and using native
> packaging.

Because it is about having running code first and improving the code of the 
libraries and applications itself first. Installation hurdles are there but 
can be overcome by a significant fraction of users (it seems that even more 
than 10% of people jailbreak their iPhone). Lacking quality of the 
application itself cannot be overcome unless you are a Mac and KDE 
superhacker like Till. So I'd rather direct all energy that there is towards 
making the application itself run and share the difficulties of all Macport 
users. If Sjors does an frontend for their packaging system, cool that eases 
the pain for all of Macports or Fink. It benefits much more people than just 
KDE.

> I think only Fink allows binary distribution.

http://guide.macports.org/#using.binaries
  3.4. Port Binaries
  MacPorts can pre-compile ports into binaries so applications need not be 
  compiled when installing on a target system. 

-- 
Managing Director - Owner: www.intevation.net       (Free Software Company)
Deputy Coordinator Germany: fsfe.org. Board member: www.kolabsys.com.
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Geschäftsführer Frank Koormann, Bernhard Reiter, Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner
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