Hi all,
I'm Thomas Leonard, one of the main developers of the ROX desktop[1]. I'd like to make Inkscape the default vector drawing application for ROX.
We provide a "ROX-All" package[2] with launchers for a number of programs. Each launcher automatically downloads the program the first time it is run, using Zero Install[3]. Zero Install is also used to fetch any required libraries and to check for updates, etc.
I made a launcher for Tgif without any trouble[4], but Inkscape is proving more difficult. The binary RPM on your site seems to use hard-coded paths to get the icons. I looked at the source code to see about fixing it, and I notice that you're already using autopackage's excellent binreloc tool. But, it appears that the RPM was compiled with this turned off!
I tried replacing the bin/inkscape file in the RPM with the one from the autopackage and it then worked fine. However, Zero Install can't extract from autopackages because they are implemented as 'executable archives' - extracting them requires running code inside them. This is OK for a program installed on a single-user machine, but Zero Install needs to support multi-user systems where the admin must be able to install a package without having to execute any of its code.
[ Aside: The goal of Zero Install is to make installing software system-wide so 'safe' (for the admin) that the admin can actually be replaced by a SetUID script, letting users share software installs automatically without needing an admin and without requiring them to trust each other. This combines ease-of-use and security, rather than trading them off against each other as in most other systems. ]
Would it be possible for you to build your binary RPMs with binreloc enabled, so that we can use them? Or, if you could host the "payload.tar.bz2" file from inside the autopackage then that would work too. Actually making Inkscape available is then extremely easy - I'll just create a short XML file giving the available versions, download locations and dependencies, as with the current Tgif XML file[4]. These XML files can be used by ROX (and Xfce) users by simply dragging the link from a web-page to the desktop's installer. They can also be run from the command-line using the '0launch' or '0alias' commands.
Thanks,
[1] http://rox.sourceforge.net [2] http://rox.sourceforge.net/desktop/ROX-All [3] http://0install.net/ [4] http://0install.net/tests/Tgif.xml