On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 01:00:29PM +0100, Tobias Pape wrote:
> Hi,

Hi Tobias,

Personally I prefer the traditional image/changes + sources + VM as a
distribution artifact. This is now nicely documented on squeak.org in the
"Advanced" section of the Downloads tab. I do not see anything really
advanced about this, but it makes sense as distinct from "Quick Download".

> 
> here's a bullet point list:
>  - macOS Sierra needs a special vm compared w/ previous ones
>  - macOS Sierra makes it hard to _just run_ downloaded bundles/All-in-ones
>  - all-in-ones look ugly since Yosemite due to new requiremens for code signing.
>  - we have some indirection in the shell scripts for the linux variant
>  - we still have this strange LD_LIBRARY_PATH dance that apparently fails on 
>    newest Ubuntu (see recent mail)
>  - occasionally, we have people from BSDen who also want to use Squeak.

I view the All-In-One, or similar "Quick Download" options, as convenience
distributions. They require maintenance in order to remain useful for the
major OS platforms, but they are useful and convenient when they do work.

I have no expectation that they will remain useful or convenient several
years after their initial release, and I have no expectation that the
community will have the resources or motivation to maintain them for the
long term.  But that does not matter too much as long as I can run the
original release image using some reasonable VM for whatever platform I
happen to be using.

> 
> So, I'd propose:
>  - Ditch the AOIs.

I like the All-In-One releases, and I think we should keep them as a
convenient "Quick Download" option as long as someone is willing and able
to produce them. We should not ditch the AIOs, but we should also not expect
them to serve as a reliable base release artifact that will be useable for
many years on a broad range of platforms. That is not going to happen.

>  - Deliver macOS bundles as DMG, not as Zip, so as to force people to
>    move the bundle, so that macOS Sierra is happy to run stuff.

That sounds like a good idea.

> In the long run:
>  - Provide deb's and rpm's

For VM installation, yes. That is definitely a good idea for Linux
distributions, although historically we have not had people (myself
included) with the time and motivation to actually do the work.

For Squeak release distributions, I don't see much value. If keeping
the AIOs up to date is already too much work, then I do not see how
maintaining Linux distributions would be any easier.

Dave