Re: Autopackage Vs Zero Install

I would characterize it as autopackage being closer to unix than
ZeroInstall which is ultimately more inspired by RISC OS than anything
else. Not that I think UNIX has a good design, I don't, but it was
built for Linux users so trying to follow all the conventions of unix
seemed to make sense at the time.

There is a whole set of interesting arguments you can have here .....
should a software distribution scheme [a] try and be as "native" as
possible or [b] try and do the Right Thing even if that doesn't fit
well with the host ?

Googles ChromeOS clearly takes the latter approach with an
uncompromising Web Uber Alles design in which there is no installation
because everything is a web app. It's sort of a pure form of the
ZeroInstall model, with the caveat that the web was never really
designed for apps and there'll need to be a ton of extra APIs added to
make it competitive with client-side development (cf. gears, o3d,
nativeclient etc).

autopackage is sort of the opposite extreme in that it's a very
traditional approach, software installation is Big and Complicated but
you end up with an installed app that behaves the same as all your
others.

Which approach you prefer depends largely on personal taste, I think.

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