[Python-Dev] [Python-3000] 2.6.1 and 3.0 (original) (raw)

Giovanni Bajo rasky at develer.com
Thu Nov 27 10:29:32 CET 2008

On gio, 2008-11-27 at 00:29 +0100, "Martin v. Löwis" wrote:

> So, deducing from your reply, this "merge module" is a thing that allows > to install the CRT (and other shared components)?

Correct. More generally, a merge module is a something like an MSI library (.a). It includes a set of files and snippets of an installation procedure for them.

OK. One question: why CRT doesn't get installed as regular files near to the python executable? That's how I usually ship it, but maybe Python has some special need.

> Another option is to contact the Advanced Installer vendor and ask for a > free license for the Python Software Foundation. This would mean that > everybody in the world would still be able to build an installer without > CRT, and only PSF would build the official one with CRT bundled. I > personally don't see this as a show-stopper (does anyone ever build > the .msi besides Martin?).

I personally don't have any interest to spend any time on an alternative technology. The current technology works fine for me, and I understand it fully. Everybody in the world is able to build an installer today, also. However, I won't stop anybody else from working a switch to a different technology, either.

I proposed an alternatives because I read you saying: "The tricky part really is when it breaks (which it does more often than not), in which case you need to understand msi.py, for which you need to understand MSI". Which means that maybe everybody has tools to build an installer today, but only a few people have the required knowledge to really do releases on Windows.

So I believe that switching to an alternative that doesn't require full understanding of MSI and msi.py would probably low the barrier and allow more people to help you out.

Giovanni Bajo Develer S.r.l. http://www.develer.com

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list