i think that whilst windows could benefit from good package management, atleast for it's open-source projects, I'm not sure it's worth developing windows as an open-source platform, or whether or not this would ultimately be good for open-source. If you're looking for a repo for commercial projects, then there are plenty like tucows, and download.com(yuck), and I agree with Mike Hearn.
Liam
<just imho>
Shlomi Fish wrote:
Hi good people!
I have an idea for a Windows-based open source project, that also has a lot of commercial value. The idea is Winapt:
Once finished, it will be an implementation of package management and dependency resolution for Windows (similar to dpkg+apt, or rpm+apt/urpmi/yum, etc.). On the site you can find an executive summary, and the beginning of the design document.
I'd like to brain storm about this idea, and that people (after reading the documents) tell me what issues and obstacles those who desire in accopmlishing such a task will face, and suggest possible solutions.
While I am an experienced programmer, I am not a very experienced Windows systems programmer. I did do some programming for Windows, but it was mostly GUI or MFC or simple things like opening files. (many times using the POSIX primitives).
I am sending this message here because some of you guys are Win32 experts.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
------------------------------------------ Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/
If his programming is anything like his philosophizing, he would find 10 imaginary bugs in the "Hello World" program.
Mike Hearn wrote:
Well, this is all rather off-topic for wine-devel - Win32 experts certainly do live here but you don't need Win32 experts for a project like this.
That said, I think you should compare the number of people wishing Linux has more Windows/Mac like package management vs the reverse before porting the spectacular piece of brokenness known as apt to Windows. Do that many people actually want it? I would guess not.
Remember that on Windows, the most popular programs aren't free anyway. Also remember that Windows programs don't usually have dependencies outside of the Win32 platform, making a tool like apt rather overkill. I suspect what you actually want is just a software catalogue or somesuch, but you can do that using a web page just as easily as a program ...
If you really want to go ahead I'd recommend something like Delphi or Visual Basic as a developer tool - raw C/C++ coding against Win32 is really quite nasty.
-
Liam Kurmos