On 04/26/2010 10:23:21 AM, David Sommerseth wrote:
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> On 26/04/10 16:47, Karl O. Pinc wrote:
> > Speaking of the standard release process there is still this
> thread:
> >
> > Re: [Openvpn-devel] Unpackged Windows binaries? -- Problems
> building
>
> > 2.1 rc15 on Windows XP
> >
> > and its patch for releasing unpackaged MS Windows binaries;
> > quite similar to what you're proposing for OS/X.
> Thanks for pushing this. I am honestly not quite sure were we stand
> with that patch. And since I understand the Windows building least
> of
> all, I've refrained from going into details of this one so far. It
> has
> not been my intention of ignoring this patch. I'm primarily focusing
> on
> the platforms I happen to understand better, and hope others will
> chime
> in on the other issues.
>
> But as responses are missing, I'll try to find some time in the near
> future (this week is crazily hectic for me) - to see if I can
> understand
> what your patch solves. That is a little bit unclear to me, as the
> patch I'm looking at seems to just make a tarball with compiled
> binaries
> ... Right now, I do not immediately see what problem that solves.
> But
> I'm pretty sure I'm overlooking something!
>
> Btw, you mentioned in some of the threads that you would look at some
> of
> the docs for this as well. I remember vaguely something about
> another
> set of patches for HTML files - which I can't say I've seen in the
> source tree. That would be good to get into the tree together with
> this
> patch when I've looked at it a bit better.
It's a packaging policy issue.
The problem addressed is that there only binaries available
for MS Windows are pre-packaged in an installer executable.
This means that anyone who wants stock binaries but a
modified installer has to recompile from source.
There are many reasons why one would want a non-stock
MS Windows installer -- the foremost being to include
an OpenVPN configuration file that allows connections
between pre-designated endpoints. One might want to
go so far as to include certificates in the installation
to secure the communications channel. ;-)
Creating custom installation executables is
relatively easy, especially as the OpenVPN code base
includes a working config file that's used to make
the installer OpenVPN distributes. But of course
OpenVPN binaries are a requirement before packaging
can be attempted.
Recompiling is both complicated and error prone. Historically
there are a number of issues that make compiling difficult.
I recall problems with mingw versions
when compiling on MS Windows and some other sort of problems
when trying to cross compile from Linux. In any case it's
clear that compiling will always be relatively complicated
and time-consuming to setup in comparison with downloading
binaries.
So, there are 2 patches. The first is to the OpenVPN
build process. It produces unpackaged MS Windows binaries
and (last you wrote) it works. The second patch is to
the OpenVPN documentation. It documents that the
binaries exist and when you want them. It does not
apply because the OpenVPN website has since been
restructured. The doc patch needs to be re-worked
to put the text in the appropriate place.
But this only makes sense if OpenVPN _will_ release
unpackaged MS Windows binaries. It makes sense to me;
the project is already releasing unpackaged Linux
binaries and it now talking about doing the same
for OS/X binaries. There's clear utility. Regardless,
this is a policy decision. Getting a resolution on
packaging policy seems to me to be the first step.
If OpenVPN _won't'_ release unpackaged MS Windows
binaries I'd like to know why so it would be
nice if whomever moves this forward, as with
any other patch, solicits more than a yes/no answer.
Regards,
Karl <k...@meme.com>
Free Software: "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
