Quoth Paul Libbrecht on or about 2004-11-11:
Le 10 nov. 04, __ 16:55, M-Rick a __crit :
There is no other way than fink to install Inkscape under Mac OS X ? Because I will not install 100 Mo of packages and binaries requested by fink only to be able to use Inscape ....
Fink is NOT 100Mb!
But the prerequisites of Inkscape aren't small. Gtk+ and such will at least weight 20 Mb, I believe.
There is really no one binary somewhere ??
A binary would link all these together and this is something which is really not a good idea. Gtk and friends are a core part of a large amount of applications in XWindows, it makes no sense to bundle (if ever possible).
This deserves an clearer explanation, for the benefit of M. Rick and others who may not understand the concept of libraries. From the top...
* * *
Programmers often find themselves reusing blocks of code. A library is a way of abstracting a block of code so that many applications can re-use it. For example, GTK2 is a library which provides a widget set.
Applications can make use of a library in two ways, called static and dynamic linking respectively. Static linking `copies' the library into the application's binary file; dynamic linking allows the application to `connect' to the library at run-time.
The advantage of dynamic linking is that the computer only needs to load the library once, even if multiple programs need to use it. Likewise, you only need to download / install the library once.
* * *
The disadvantage of dynamic linking is that the library MUST be where the application expects it to be. This is, broadly, what fink does.
To make a `copy this file to /Applications to install inkscape' package would require either
* duplicating some of fink's functionality. This is non-trivial, and we've already got fink, so why bother?
or
* linking to GTK et al statically. If this was done, you'd still have to download those libraries (i.e. the 100Mb), only they'd be part of Inkscape. If you wanted to install another program that used those libraries, you'd have to download ANOTHER 100Mb, regardless of whether that program was statically or dynamically linked.
The *REAL* problem, as I see it, is that Apple were impolite enough not to bundle Fink and the libraries with your system, which is what Linux vendors do. (That's why Debian has 7 CDs and OS-X only has 1.5.)
-trent