Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
What the hell is OpenCandy?
app103:
But the dll isn't *left* on your machine. It is to facilitate the installation. That's the same as saying that NSIS is installed on your machine just because certain supporting dlls have to be extracted to be loaded into memory. That is *not* installation. It assists in installation of the requested software.
-wraith808 (March 31, 2011, 10:17 PM)
--- End quote ---
But NSIS is open source and you can obtain the code for it and whatever it needs to use to assist installing an application.
OpenCandy...no.
I have decided to contact the FSF to see what they have to say about the matter. I'll let you know when I receive a reply.
mouser:
It seems to me a good solution for authors releasing open source material is to always provide the option of a "portable" non-installer download. Whether the installer is open source or not, just as a matter of convenience.
wraith808:
But the dll isn't *left* on your machine. It is to facilitate the installation. That's the same as saying that NSIS is installed on your machine just because certain supporting dlls have to be extracted to be loaded into memory. That is *not* installation. It assists in installation of the requested software.
-wraith808 (March 31, 2011, 10:17 PM)
--- End quote ---
But NSIS is open source and you can obtain the code for it and whatever it needs to use to assist installing an application.
OpenCandy...no.
I have decided to contact the FSF to see what they have to say about the matter. I'll let you know when I receive a reply.
-app103 (March 31, 2011, 10:43 PM)
--- End quote ---
NSIS is... but what if someone decides to use InstallShield. Do you have a problem with that also? Or Wise. Or any of the other non open source software options for installers? Or if someone uses NSIS with a custom extension that isn't OSS? You can write extensions, and they don't automatically become OSS...
That was my point about OC being held to a different standard; you can include all of the custom code you want to in an installer; you're already giving a certain amount of leeway to someone when you run an installer. To single out this avenue, when you can do the exact same thing and there be no problems otherwise is the part that seems disingenuous.
It seems to me a good solution for authors releasing open source material is to always provide the option of a "portable" non-installer download. Whether the installer is open source or not, just as a matter of convenience.
-mouser (March 31, 2011, 10:48 PM)
--- End quote ---
Sometimes that's not an option because of requirements of the application. This is one of the (many) reasons that I never release anything open source, nor do I use OSS when developing- sometimes people get pedantic about the licensing, even if you're releasing the software for free...
And to get a bit pedantic about this myself (:)) NSIS is OSS. The scripts that I create to use with NSIS are not. I would think that plugins created are in the same way not bound by the license, especially as NSIS is licensed under the zlib/libpng license.
40hz:
Yes, indeed it is a functional difference. Several things run on your machine without being installed
-wraith808 (March 31, 2011, 08:55 PM)
--- End quote ---
Just a minor niggle... ;)
I think you might have missed what I was trying to say there.
Based on what I learned from my professors, the fact that a piece of code is capable of being run is proof positive an installation occurred. There is absolutely no "functional difference" between installing to RAM or HD, because in either case it accomplishes the exact same function - getting a piece of binary code into a place where it can be executed by the target system.
To paraphrase so there's no confusion: If it's runnable - it's been installed.
:)
----
Note: I do consider the code Java scripts and ASPs to be installed when they're called in by a browser. So much so that I employ script blockers and a few other safeguards to make sure things don't install themselves into my system RAM without me first giving them explicit permission.
Which is a shame in a way. I don't want to block advertising and banners on sites I visit because I have a philosophical issue with my site hosts looking to earn some affiliate revenue by including them. I only do so because so many sites began abusing scripting technologies that I felt I had no choice.
That's why I object to what OC is trying to do by redefining words and undermining an informal industry guideline that has served its end-users well. Because even if it does little to prevent installation scripts from playing games, it's still valuable it that it serves as a standard for what should be considered acceptable behavior.
Just my 2¢ 8)
Renegade:
Meh... This is one of those things that is polarizing, and people just won't agree.
This is the no opt-out issue, you can't opt out of OC getting to run on your PC and doing whatever it does, benign though that may be.
-Eóin (March 31, 2011, 10:27 PM)
--- End quote ---
You've phrased that in an interesting way. Let me run a bit with it... (Devil's Advocate in full effect... :) )
Now, when you run just about anything, there are things that go on that you are not aware of. In fact, virtually ALL software runs other software. So when you run program X, it includes zlib, which you DIDN'T explicitly give your permission for, and program X didn't ask you. Program Y includes Gecko code and didn't ask you to run that either. Program Z includes Indy, which you didn't explicitly give your permission to run. Another program includes ILS and another Eziriz and another Xenocode and another Codejock and another runs...
We didn't opt-out of any of it, and it's all running on our machines without our permission!
While all that may seem a bit silly, it points out that we will ALWAYS run software that we didn't know we were running. "Did I explicitly choose to run ABC?" is an untenable position due to the nature of software itself. It's intentional, and different people have different intentions when performing the exact same actions. It's like peeling onions.
Step up to the Internet on a single web page and all of a sudden things spiral way out of control.
Now what "installed" means could change. If software is partially running on your machine, but also (mostly) running off your machine (servers), is it installed? It's partly there... And what that is you have zero control over.
Ok, that got silly again. But the point is that when you start applying principles, you need to be somewhat consistent with them, and some principles will run into a lot of problems very quickly.
A better measure than "did I explicitly choose to run this software" (which as I've shown above leads to complete insanity), is something more like "is this software and its components doing any harm or is it benefiting me"?
That's a much better metric to measure.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version