Eero Ahonen wrote:
> I guess this means our conversation at p.o-t.f.h.b.b.b?

Quite likely. I didn't go rummaging.

> I wasn't saying 
> Windows is poor because it doesn't have a package manager (rpm, dpkg 
> oslt). What I did say is I'd like to have a software reposity for 
> Windows, to be used as easily as in Linux (ie Portage). There are 
> practically really low amount of dependencies at Windows-world, but 
> there's still a pretty load of software.

Yeah. The problem is, who is going to host such a thing?  We already 
have a software repository: it's called Google. :-)

> I'd (I, as me, so that being *an opinion*) still like to install 
> Irfanview, Firefox, GIMP and other software with "install irfanview 
> firefox gimp" -style command instead of surfing the 'net, downloading 
> each packet individually and running them.

That would certainly be convenient, but impractical for any commercial 
software. But for the free stuff? Sure, why would it be difficult? 
Nobody wants it enough to actually write the code to maintain the list 
of places to download setup.exe files from. :-)

> Not always (actually I can't remember a single .NET -software I've 
> installed that inholds the .NET system),

Actually, it was pretty common in the earlier days. And DirectX always 
came with the software. I think now that pretty much everyone has gotten 
.NET via windows update, folks don't include it as much. Certainly not 
in a downloaded product, but on CDs it still is there.  Why include a 
free download package with your download if it isn't needed?

Of course, those who don't even provide a direct link to the .net from 
their installer are just lame. :-)

> [1] .NET ain't fully downwards-compatible, so all .NET1 -software won't 
> work on .NET2 and all .NET2 -software won't work on .NET3. I don't know 
> if this is problem/reason of .NET or stupid programmers, but it's one of 
> the rare system today, which need to have an exact version of such 
> system on Windows. Java is another example of such system.

Actually, it's done on purpose, and specifically designed to work 
nevertheless. They call it "side by side execution".

> Assuming from that web-page, the Windows-binaries of FF3 are 
> statistically linked, Linux-binaries aren't.

Yep. Or at least, the right versions are included in the distribution.

> *That's* what I ment earlier.

Fair enough. And sure, having a nice interface to a repository in that 
sense is a good thing. But you can't really do that in the commercial 
world, and there's way way too much Windows software to do that for free 
in the "free" world. It's not like it would be hard to support - all 
you'd need is the list of packages to download and launch. Getting 
everyone to play along is the problem, and if folks don't play 
along,they don't show up in your repository *and* there's nothing you 
can do about it unless it's GPL so you can recompile it yourself to make 
it play along.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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