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Getting git-cola http://cola.tuxfamily.org/ http://cola.tuxfamily.org/ to snow leopard users has been tricky business. OS X is kinda like gentoo, but with more

by davvid 16y ago

Getting git-cola http://cola.tuxfamily.org/ http://cola.tuxfamily.org/ to snow leopard users has been tricky business. OS X is kinda like gentoo, but with more portability issues ;-) (I kid, I kid!) I don't know if I should use brew, fink, macports, etc. and if I did know, would my choice affect my users too? py2app worked on leopard but doesn't work on snow leopard anymore. That was a bummer. The only available option is to compile it all myself and provide a separate installer just for Qt and PyQt4. I haven't gotten around to doing that yet ;-) but will do so soon. Overall that will be better than py2app because using py2app meant having 40MB .app bundles. Providing a separate installer means I can ship small ~1MB installers that contain just cola and nothing else. That said, I've never been satisfied with packaging on OS X. OTOH, maybe everyone has settled on something (brew?) and I haven't gotten the memo.

IgorPartola 16y ago
Having a packaging system at the core of the OS distribution has some great benefits. When a new Mac OS X comes out, don't you just hate having to wait for DVDs from Apple or making a trip to the Apple store? A packaging system would allow you to do a live upgrade as soon as the new version is out. (Note: I am fully aware that a package system is not necessary for this but think it is the most elegant solution for this problem). The other matter is of course software installation and upgrades. There is no reason in today's day and age for you to remember that Photoshop comes from adobe.com or wait for their DVDs by mail. Most applications can quit adding new version checkers too: why bother when the package system does it for you? Lastly, the package manager could also handle payments. Why bother building your own solution when a central one exists (or would exist)?
- revicon 16y ago
  Probably because if I'm adobe, I make money off people buying new versions of my software and I don't want to rely on some packaging system I don't have full control over to push people to upgrade. I want to be able to upsell the hell out of my users right from within my app.

by davvid 16y ago

IgorPartola 16y ago

Having a packaging system at the core of the OS distribution has some great benefits. When a new Mac OS X comes out, don't you just hate having to wait for DVDs from Apple or making a trip to the Apple store? A packaging system would allow you to do a live upgrade as soon as the new version is out. (Note: I am fully aware that a package system is not necessary for this but think it is the most elegant solution for this problem). The other matter is of course software installation and upgrades. There is no reason in today's day and age for you to remember that Photoshop comes from adobe.com or wait for their DVDs by mail. Most applications can quit adding new version checkers too: why bother when the package system does it for you? Lastly, the package manager could also handle payments. Why bother building your own solution when a central one exists (or would exist)?

revicon 16y ago
Probably because if I'm adobe, I make money off people buying new versions of my software and I don't want to rely on some packaging system I don't have full control over to push people to upgrade. I want to be able to upsell the hell out of my users right from within my app.