Industry Council Open Amiga -- Install WG

A detailed description of the area of work
To investigate problems and solutions in installing and removing applications from the system. The WG will cover installation from removable-media, local and nettworked disks, and the Internet. We will investigate how to best store unistall-information, including use of shared files.
The WG will investigate the different variations of installs, including first-time installs, updates, demo-versions, plugin-type installs, installs for small utilities, in-place installs, and installs to other directories.
??? The WG will look at current tools for installing applications, and will work to define new tools.

Improvements

Make installing an removing applications easier for developers and users.
Allow for applications to be detected and located by the user or other aplications.
Allow for cleaning up unused shared files.
Make the install-process more attractive for new users.

An impact assessment on the current platform

It should not affect current applications directly. It will however affect most future applications since it is assumend that most or all future applicaitons will use the new install-process. The terms "new-style" and "old-style" applications have been used in the discussions, and it seems likely that "old-syle" applications will have to be "migrated" to the new style if all improvements are to be taken advantage of.

An impact assessment on the current market

An improved install-process would help all products who install software.

A list of those individuals/companies/organisations who will be impacted

Ideally, all Amiga developers.

A Working Group Time and Resources plan

1998-03-09

First draft of the web-page for this work group created.

A list of deliverables

A description of the desired install-process. The solution should be usable on other filing systems (eg FAT, VFAT etc.), rather than requiering a custom solution.
A discussion of error-handling.
A migration tool for migrating "old-style" applications to the new environment.
??? An install.library or equivalent.

Proposed manager: John J. Karcher

No schedule has been set yet.