[9] in installers
Installation Scripts at the Institute
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lynne E. Sousa)
Fri Feb 28 11:51:28 1997
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 11:47:52 -0500
To: rferrara@MIT.EDU, mca@MIT.EDU, installers@MIT.EDU
From: "Lynne E. Sousa" <sousa@MIT.EDU>
Bob,
I have spent the better part of this month working on the MIT installer for
Brio query for the intel based platforms and I would like to ask the
question of why are we doing this?
Brio has built a perfectly good installer that does all the right things in
all the right places for each of the operating systems. Why are we
expending so much "man"power to figure out what the Brio setup program is
doing so that we can recreate it. The Brio setup program does require an
installation key and a serial number to complete the installation, but can't
we provide that information in a readme file that the user would download?
And if the download was from the web put explicit instructions to download
the readme because it contains the key information for the installation to
be completed? Wouldn't that be a better use of the time and resources now
being sucked up figuring out what the installer from Brio does to recreate it?
This is feeling like the old attitude that if MIT didn't write it can't be
doing anything good. Isn't one of the reasons for using commercial software
is that they expend the manpower to create and maintain the installation and
other software components so that the user only needs to install and use the
software?
I agree with the concept that if MIT has created an application then MIT
should write an installation script for that application, but if MIT has
spent money on a commercial application we should not expend time and energy
undoing and redoing what we have already spent money to purchase.
Especially when what we have purchased works.
I will get off my soapbox now but I thought I should express my views on
this particular activity.
Thank you for your attention
Lynne E. Sousa
Lynne E. Sousa
Delivery and Integration Processes
E19-365
258-5857
If you want a thing done well, get a couple of old broads to do it.
- Bette Davis
