On Dec 26, 3:14 pm, Ross Ridge <rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote: > Jonathan Hartley <tart...@tartley.com> wrote: > > >Am I right to infer that if I want to distribute a py2exe'd > >application legally, and have half a chance of it working on a non- > >developer's machine, then I have to: > > >a) Ask my users to run the Visual C++ redistributable installer, as > >well as download my program. This is really unfortunate, since one of > >the major disadvantages of coding something in Python as opposed to as > >a web application is the overhead of asking users to download and > >execute anything at all. Asking them to do it twice seems problematic. > >Most users would regard this as a deal-breaking hurdle, do you think? > > >or > > >b) Buy a copy of Visual Studio in order to acquire the rights to > >distribute msvcr.dll (etc.) along with my application. > > If your users are paying to download your program then spending $1000 or > whatever it is to buy Visual C++ doesn't seem to be unreasonable expense > to make sure you're staying well within the right side of the law. > If you're giving it away for free, or aren't expecting to make enough > money to make spending $1000 worthwhile, then asking them to download > something sepeately doesn't seem to be unreasonable either. I give > my py2exe wrapped application for free so I'm not losing sleep just > because a few people can't run it because they don't have 7.1 runtime > already installed. > > That said, you might have couple of other options. Microsoft's > documentation says that with the Express edition, "it is recommended to > redistribute Visual C++ libraries using the Visual C++ Redistributable > Package." That suggests that you can redistribute the package with your > application and have your installer run it automatically. My older copy > of the Windows SDK includes the Visual C++ 2005 compilers with the C/C++ > runtime merge modules, so lastest version of the SDK might include 2008 > merge modules. > > Whatever you do, make sure you install the runtime correctly. Part of > the reason for the restrictions on redistributing the runtime is so people > don't just bindly copy DLLs around. That leads to older DLLs overriding > newer DLLs and makes it difficult for Micrsoft to make security fixes. > In particular they don't want a repeat of the GDI+ fiasco, where a buffer > overrun of the image processing routines resulted security vulnerabilities > in a lot of third party applications that couldn't be easily fixed by > deploying a patched DLL with Windows Update. > > Ross Ridge > > -- > l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU > [oo][oo] rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca > -()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ > db //
Thanks very much again Ross. Yeah, I'm looking at two scenarios: 1) Writing some games, which for the moment are free download, and hence have a high elasticity of demand. If I make the install fiddly, a lot of people won't bother. 2) About once a week the last couple of months I've had a friend phone to say 'can you write me a simple program to do X', where X is stuff like calling a web API to look up info for every postcode/zipcode in a database. This sort of thing is ideally suited to Python, but then when I come to send the program to my friend, it never works. These are non-technical users, so I'd rather send them a single executable that 'just works', rather than asking them to install Python and then coach them through running a script - they would HATE that as a solution. In each case, at the moment, I don't even have an installer. If I have to create one just for tiny 50 line applications like case (2), then that seems a large and cumbersome hurdle, unless the process can be automated for future projects. I feel like it would be a huge increase in Python's viability, usefulness and desirability if we could improve this situation. Best regards, many thanks to everyone who has contributed to my understanding on this thread. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
