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