[Python-Dev] Packaging and binary distributions for Python 3.3

[Paul Moore]

On 14 October 2011 17:46, "Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:
>
>> - On formats, I strongly believe that having multiple formats is a
>> problem. But I need to be clear here - an installer (MSI, wininst) is
>> a bundle containing executable code (which drives the interface), plus
>> a chunk of data that is the objects to be installed. (I am
>> oversimplifying here, but bear with me).
>
> Beyond oversimplifying, I think this is actually wrong: MSI deliberately
> is *not* an executable format, but just a "dumb" database, to be interpreted
> by the installation routines that are already on the system.
> In that sense, it is very similar to pysetup and bdist_simple.

Ah. Sorry, I had misunderstood that, then.

So in theory, packaging could be taught to extract the distribution
files from an MSI file (using msilib, presumably) and install them
much like it could with a zip file. That would imply that the only
barrier to using MSI as the default format is the fact that the files
can only be manipulated on a Windows platform (which is only a problem
if Unix users can build binaries for Windows - they would then be able
to build but not package them).

I wish I felt more comfortable with MSI as a format (as opposed to an
opaque clickable installer). I'd be interested to know what others
think.

Paul.