Re: What about official GTK+ installer for win32?

["Michael Lawrence" <lawremi iastate edu>]

On 10/25/06, Urs Stotz <stotz gmx ch> wrote:

On Tue, Oct 24, 2006 at 10:41:09PM +0200, Tomasz Jankowski wrote:
>
> [...]

To maintain such a project it need automated builds and testing.

Tor Lillqvist has written about the problems with differend version of
GTK+ on Win32. Could be the installation to differend directories and
a program loader a solution? The program loader set the enviroment
for the GTK+ program an start it.

Given the current prevalence of GTK-based apps on Windows, it seems reasonable to just bundle the binaries with the application. However, as the number of GTK-based packages grows, the inherent inefficiency of monolithic installations will take its toll. Modular systems are simply easier to maintain. I don't want to have to release a new installer every time a bug-fix release of some dependency is released. The user should have the freedom to easily update everything at will.

I have trouble accepting the argument that stuff on Windows changes too fast for apps to adapt. It's true that software originally developed for unix-like systems will have some growing pains when moving to Windows, but these should fade with time. Also, with modern package management systems on Linux, I rarely feel constrained to depend on a earlier version of a package. The dependency system will handle it for me.

I feel that a sophisticated package management system for Windows is a must for open-source to become mainstream on Windows. Of course, the construction and maintenance of such a system would be a monumental task and far beyond the scope of GTK+.

Michael