[EROS-Arch] Installers

[Joerg Bornschein]

On Wed, Mar 28, 2001 at 06:48:06AM -0500, Jonathan S. Shapiro wrote:

Hello,

> > > I agree that you don't need to execute the software to achieve binding
> > > (though it simplifies things if you do), but the point is that given
> > > confinement there is no reason *not* to allow active installation.
> >
> > I'm not sure if it really simplifies things: It would be nice to
> > inspect all dependencies without executing the installation constructor.
> 
> Wait. Two things are getting confused here: static dependencies vs. runtime
> initialization.

I'd like to _very_ cleanly seperate them:

phase 1: 
   building a factory for a configuration/setup application. IMHO this 
   should be done without active constructors. 
   A system supplied service could do this.

phase 2:
   running this setup application. It is nothing more than an ordinary
   application. This application of course is turing-complete.
   It may be used to export constructors which are applications to other
   users.


> installation mechanism should be turing complete. Given a set of satisfied
> static dependencies, there may still be a need to execute code to get them
> installed in the right places in the program, or to do other program setup
> tasks having nothing to do with authority.

Hmm, in phase 1? 


Anyway, I think these details can be sorted out when a prototype 
implementation is available...


   joerg