[Mono-dev] Cross-platform command-lines

[Charlie Poole]

Hi Mirco, 

> On Tue, 2007-08-07 at 10:21 -0700, Charlie Poole wrote:
> > Some follow-up questions, now that I've looked at mono.getOptions.
> > 
> > 1) I like the idea of having the system provide this capablility, 
> > rather than including it in every app. But what do people 
> generally do 
> > for cross-platform stuff?
> >   * package it with the app for windows only?
> >   * package it with the app but ignore it at runtime on windows?
> >   * package it and use the local copy on all platforms?
> >   * build the source right into the app?
> >   * something else? 
> 
> A good way is to provide a binary tarball for MS .NET which 
> bundles Mono libraries and a binary Mono tarball. Or one 
> binary tarball for both.

Makes sense.
 
> And a source tarball without any libraries, if someone wants 
> to build from source on MS .NET he needs to get the libs from 
> the (Mono) binary tarball.

That too.
 
> Binary bundling is an issue, as nobody can tell what source 
> was used to build it, that is especially a problem for 
> opensource development and Linux distributions that care 
> about source (like Debian).

Believe me, I know. There have been a few apps that used some of 
the NUnit code, modifying it and redistributing the assemblies
sometimes even with indistinguishable version numbers. That's 
one reason I'm thinking of licensing changes, BTW.

OTOH, not having a binary package is an issue for some users
who are not oriented toward open source. For example, I have
a lot of NUnit users, working for a certain large software 
company here in the NorthWest, who are not permitted to download 
our source. :-(

Charlie