Nowadays, the easiest way to distribute binaries is to use containers. I made 
some containerised simh images (I’ve not upgraded them for a while though). 
Details in my blog 
http://ancientbits.blogspot.com/2016/05/containerizing-simh-bsd-in-box.html?m=1

Jordi Guillaumes Pons


El 27 des 2018, a les 23:45, Clem Cole <[email protected]> va escriure:

> 
> 
>> On Wed, Dec 26, 2018 at 7:03 PM David Brownlee <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Well, Joyent also makes binary pkgsrc packages for SmartOS, macOS, and 
>> CentOS/REL :) https://pkgsrc.joyent.com/
> 
> xkcd on standards  sigh.....
> 
> Note: I have lived this issue at Intel for +10 years BTW [we make a very 
> slick set of development tools that are compatible across different OS's]....
> 
> So I will step on top of Soap Box ....  
> 
> As I often have to remind some of our more our engineers at work installs, 
> particularly binary installs, must be socially compliant with the OS - i.e. 
> what the customer expects.  This is the 'least astonishment principle.'
> 
> That means custom installers that are common for the tool, but different from 
> the native OS are a no-no if you really want someone to use the tool as a 
> binary. [And that's expensive and hard to do well BTW].
> 
> Yup, custom installers makes it easier for >>you<< but not for the person 
> doing the installs.   So if you make the choice to support an OS, 
> particularly as a binary, then the install needs to be for that OS --- for 
> winders its a different  installer than from DOS which is different than VMS. 
>    For VMS its the DEC Installer.  For, the UNIX family Solaris is different 
> from the loathsome DEC setld(8) of Ultrix and Tru64, which is different from 
> IBM AIX which is different from HP-UX, etc....  Linux gets really strange on 
> the binary front.   The good news is the commerical folks using Linux it is 
> primarily rpm and there are tools the convert from tools that convert from 
> rpm to yum/getapt etc., but generally Linux folks generally do not want a 
> binary installer ;-)  But there are N different Linux package managers and 
> each one is 'better' than the other?   If you have a binary distribution for 
> your tool, which do you use?
> 
> That said ....
> 
> simh is a wonderful tool and the fruits of the labor of many people.  But I 
> see it as primarily a github (source) release.   When Mark graceously does 
> make a binary, he seems to follow least astonishment.   But since he has made 
> the sources available and some distro's have picked it up and created 
> binaries of their own, many have done a poor job of following up with the 
> source distribution.   Which of course, fails the least astonishment 
> principle also (because it's easier for the distro maintainers of course).  
> They can claim they have 'simh' but because they made it eaiser for 
> themselves, they are in effect an older (unmaintained) 'fork' or the tree.
> 
> And this is the of course is a flaw in FOSS.   The economics don't follow.   
> Ecomonically, you want to make it as easy on the builder of the tool if your 
> 'product' is the sources.  Which is what Mark does (an excellent job IMO as 
> its pretty impressive the number of OS's that can build it).
> 
> But if you take the sources and package it and create an installer ... well 
> Mark and Bob should speak for themselves .... but I think that is you own 
> problem; not simh's
> 
> Stepping down from Soap Box ...
> 
> I will grant you that the users of simh are likely to be a tad more techie 
> than 'the average bear.'   But to me that says, you can trust them to go to 
> github, do a 'clone' and then build it themselves.
> 
> My thinking at least ....
> 
> Clem
> ᐧ
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