Feedback from an application developer

[Bernhard Reiter]

Am Freitag, 21. August 2009 12:59:32 schrieb Thomas Friedrichsmeier:
>  I opted for NSIS.

We (as in the team doing the Kontact Enterprise Client on windows)
also had to do a stand-a-lone installer and we did it with NSIS, maybe it 
helps you as an example:
http://wiki.kolab.org/index.php/Kontact_for_Windows_(beta-huge-debug)

One important point is that you have to be able to provide the precise sources
and scripts  for the  GNU LGPL & GPL binaries you are shipping, so I recommed 
to provide them right away (and not using the written promisse).

> Once I had the NSIS installer working, I ran into another unexpected
> problem: There is this MSVC / MinGW issue. I understand this problem cannot
> be solved at its root, but is there really no better way of coping with
> this incompatibility? Right now (correct me, where I'm wrong):
> - *all* kde packages (library or not) in the kde-win installer need to be
> compiled with both MinGW and MSVC.

I am not sure if this is true for the kde-windows installer, but for the 
Kontact e4 Windows installer we have chosen MinGW only.
At least for C libraries the compiler should not matter (if you use the right 
bitfields flag).

> - both versions are not co-installable (or at least not in the same
> directory).
> For developers / packagers this means that you either need to specifically
> instruct users to install one particular flavour of KDE, or you need to
> provide both versions, even if:
> - nothing links against your package
> - you're already spending enough time compiling / packaging
> - if you need to link against a third party C++-library that's only readily
> available in one flavour, you're out of luck.

To my knowledge windows lacks a proper dependency system like dpkg + aptitude,
so the idea for most windows application is to just provide everything they 
need beside the windows system libraries.

It is unclear how to deal with this challenge in the best way that considers 
the resources we have.

Best,
Bernhard
-- 
Managing Director - Owner: www.intevation.net       (Free Software Company)
Germany Coordinator: fsfeurope.org. Coordinator: www.Kolab-Konsortium.com.
Intevation GmbH, Osnabrück, DE; Amtsgericht Osnabrück, HRB 18998
Geschäftsführer Frank Koormann, Bernhard Reiter, Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner
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