Jon Phillips wrote:
Hi tOnY, there is already a windows installer for Inkscape at least. I hope you can use that. It is NSIS-based, which is an open source installer. MSI is not an open source installer. Thus, you can see why we use NSIS, which many consider more effective...
I suspect the trouble is that MSI is automatically deployable and updatable across Active Directory networks, while other package formats are not.
It's possible to re-package apps into MSI format ones self if the original packager doesn't provide an MSI, but not everybody knows that or knows how to do it. It's also a lot more fuss.
Python is packaged as an MSI installer, as are a few other OSS apps. I'd be interested in knowing how they do it, actually, because Scribus could benefit from using the format eventually too.
This site has a whole bunch of info on Windows Installer and MSI:
http://www.appdeploy.com/techhomes/windowsinstaller.asp
Notably, WiX is listed under the "packaging tools" section, and it's OSS (CPL) .
Hope this is helpful.
-- Craig Ringer