Packaging third-party applications (Was: Meta Toolchain Release (2008 May))

[Rod Whitby]

Werner Almesberger wrote:
> Rod Whitby wrote:
>> And therein starts the decline of Openmoko application availability into  
>> the poor practices of the windows world ...
> 
> ;-) It's really two different usage scenarios: one is the "nice and tidy
> distribution", the other is getting something to build and, sometimes,
> to disseminate it quickly.

Fully agree.  The problem occurs when the "quick and dirty" 
dissemination to other developers and alpha testers evolves into being 
the main end-user distribution channel.  The quick and dirty will happen 
by default, so someone needs to continue to push towards the "nice and 
tidy distribution" if it's to happen at all and not degenerate into chaos.

> While there are people who indeed have the angelic patience to work in
> distribution mode all the time, for most of us, this is just too much
> pain and overhead. (Hi Andy ;-)
 >
> Also, having a toolchain that makes it easy to cross-build from sources
> will help a lot towards people not even wanting to download pre-built
> binaries.

Fully agree.

There will also be people (including resellers of application specific 
turnkey solutions involving openmoko hardware) who will want to select a 
set of applications for a custom rootfs build.

If application developers want their software to ever be part of a 
custom installation, or to even be part of the standard factory build 
that openmoko installs, then it's in their interest to learn how to 
package their software in the official distribution system ...

-- Rod