Re: Resource framework, relocatability (was Re: Glib: a Win32 discussion)

[Damjan Jovanovic <damjan jov gmail com>]

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 7:17 PM, Paul Davis <paul linuxaudiosystems com> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 5:03 AM, Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com> wrote:
>
>> In a specialized setup where you are in control of everything is
>> certainly possible. But in an osx scheme where the user just drops an
>> executable file somewhere it doesn't just work. You'd need something
>> like the the osx launch services to handle it.
>
> all sounds terribly reasonable, with one fatal flaw ... it *is*
> working for us right now, on linux (and various bsd's and solaris and
> ...)
>
> --p

It "*is*" working only in a very limited way. All package managers
today need root access to install software, which is a security risk
(downloading a DEB from the Internet and double-clicking it allows
arbitrary code execution, as root). Also, eg. students won't have root
access on their school/university PC, making distro packages
completely useless. Installing multiple versions of a package is often
impossible because they're not relocatable. Portable apps for Linux
virtually don't exist. Those are just 4 examples among numerous
others.

Autopackage, Zero Install, Klik, Listaller, Loki Setup, and others
exist for a reason.