Bo Peng <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > My exact point is that since two maintainers are both busy, they > should try to work together, and maintain a single official version. > This will be better for them, and for the users.
Why, exactly, will it be better for me? I'm retired and am contractually obliged to remain so. > Frankly, windows XP users have got used to install whatever > application with administrate privilege. My friends complain a lot > that they can not do anything with their IT-maintained PCs, and in the > mean time, enjoyed sending emails to the IT guys: hi, please install > lyx for me. Sorry, but that's just fud. LyX itself does not require that it is installed with admin priviliges. For the installer to require extra priviliges than the package is somewhat ridiculous. > > nor support windows 98, according to its documentation. The official > > installer does, but appears to lack a dedicated maintainer. NSIS doesn't support Win98, period. Both installers crash on Win98 but a .zip file of a LyX installation could be unpacked on a Win98 machine and will then work so long as the user is willing to perform a few steps by hand. Like run configure. > > So your criteria for "official" appears to be ease of use for > > incompetent new users > Please be careful about using incompetent, since your are saying that > I was incompetent to handle the official installer last week. Don't be so prickly ;-) > I am not against the idea of "supporting a wider scope of installation > scenarios", Uwe obviously would welcome that as well. He would be > happy if Angus can help him, and let his installer work on win98. See above. The best that we can do for Win98 is to provide a .zip file and instructions of what has to be done subsequently "by hand". > > So there may be only one official 1.4.x version to > > choose from in the future. Angus/LyX 1.3.7 will still be useful. > Then, make Uwe's the default/official one. Frankly, I think that the whole argument is specious. We don't provide packages for Redhat, Debian, Suse et al. We provide these people with the ability to produce their own packages tailored to their own systems. Uwe's funky Windows installer fills exactly the same niche for the Windows system. All Uwe really needs are the binaries because he's never managed to generate those himself. He get's those from "my" installer because that's a convenient way to package up the stuff he needs. I'm perfectly happy to keep providing him with those for the time being; no doubt other Windows developers could do so in the future. By keeping the LyX project separate from the "Funky Installer" project, the LyX project can neatly sidestep all those licencing issues that a really funky, super duper Windows installer will (does already) suffer from. If you dumn down the installer to obviate these licencing issues then you end up where? Yup, with a dumn, basic installer like the one I wrote. Angus
