Dear all,
My plan is to distribute my own rail-based CMS application as an opensource package. However, I am trying to find out what is the most effective and professional way of doing this.
Sharkie, I have thought about this too, as I have similar requirements.
For instance I have to distribute a Rails app with the following limitations: -multiple O/Ses (limits me to cross platform gems only) -1-click installation (automatically install Ruby, Rails and necessary gems)
My thinking is - assume nothing on the part of the user (even Ruby or Rails knowledge).
In that case, I need to deliver platform-specific package managers, I need to have these deployments integrate with external automatic update mechanisms (so that customers can get critical updates like security fixes).
Also any dependencies that install silently (cross platform gems, mongrel vs apache, sqlite vs MySQL) are inherently better and easier.
For Rails savvy customers, I don't know if distributing as a gem is the right way to do things, but it may be appropriate in some contexts. For instance it might provide a convenient way to obscure your Rails source (to prevent support headaches when customers fiddle with it, and prevent people picking through it for weaknesses).
I am wondering whether it is possible and legal to distribute an all-in-one package (requiring no external installs) such as this: Distributing Rails Applications - A Tutorial but to make it available for all platform.
Easily checked by looking through the license agreements for the 1-click installers. Most have a section that describes the terms under which they can be redistributed.
regards, Richard.
