Re: [Syllable-developer] Syllable installation system white paper

[Vandervliet, K. <Kri...@an...>]

Turki Al-Marri wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Vandervliet, Kristian wrote:
>> Turki Al-Marri wrote:
>>> I've arranged a white paper about Syllable installation system:
>>> http://www.geocities.com/tigenius/SIS.html
>>>
>>> Please read it thoroughly and reply.
>>>
>>> Criticism is more than welcome, because we want to get it
>>> right from the first shot ;)
>>
>> I don't want to dampen your enthusiasm and your energy is great,
>> but you're making a fundemental error: You've assumed Syllable needs
>> some form of complex package management system.  You're coming at
>> Syllable from a Linux viewpoint, so your assumption here makes some
>> sort of sense, but it is misguided.
>
> I posted it for a reason, to see what the other developers are
> thinking. So this is not considered damping enthusiasm, it's
> considered sharing ideas. I'm okay :)
>=20
> And the only assumption I made is that the average user expect a
> double-click-and-go type installation, so it make sense if the user
> just downloaded the package and run it.

Equally, a user could just drag the ZIP file to /Application and unzip
it,
which is the preferred method.  The advantage here is that the user
know *exactly* what they did, and there are nothing happening that the
user can not see.
=20
>> Applications should not be complex enough to ever require the type
>> of package management you propose.  Package managers do not belong
>> on Syllable, because Syllable does not need them.
>=20
> It's not made because of complex applications, it's made to have a
> unified method of adding and more importantly removing applications.

The problem is that the very existence of a package manager adds
complexity.  It may be acceptable if your existing software installtion
scheme is already so complex that a package manager improves matters
(See: UNIX) but on a system like Syllable there is little benefit.
See also: MacOS, OS X, BeOS

> For example an e-mail client may want to add an applet to check for
> emails every x minutes at start up, what do you think would happen if
> the user removed it with the current methods? The user will have to
> dig in the scripts to remove the annoying error message caused by the
> missing application.

I'd expect such an applet to be inteligent enough to work out for itself
that it's "Parent" application is missing and it would *disable itself*
from running in the future, and exit, silently.

=20
>> You also make some technical errors:
>>
>> o Any installation system that automatically ran a shell script as
>>   the root user is a huge security hole: there is nothing to stop
>>   a malicious developer including "rm -rf /" or something equally
>>   henious in a script.
>=20
> That's so true. Maybe we should a user that have access to the
> necessary folders only, but when installing a driver root is
> necessary.
>=20
> By the way, there is no system I know that don't have this security
> hole. Even *nix.

Yes this is true.  This is one good reason to try and avoid
duplicating the problem on Syllable :)

>> o ZIP is used on Syllable for a very specific reason.  As far as I
>>   am aware, 7zip would be unsuitable for general use on Syllable
>>   because it can not store attribute data.
>=20
> I wanted to use a format that I'm sure that it is 100% patent free.
> But if zip is patent free then there is no reason not to use it.

I am not aware of any patent issues surrounding ZIP  If there were
patent issues we would still need to find a suitable replacement
that can store attribute data inside the archive.
=20
--=20
Vanders
http://www.syllable.org
http://www.liqwyd.com=20
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