Re: Packaging for "Smart Business," anyone?

Mihael Schmidt just commented on the RPG list about the built-in "apt" and "rpm" commands in Linux, providing a standard mechanism for downloading and installing packages from the Internet, and how IBM i developers need something like that. It would be nice to have a central repository for packages, and a single command to call.

A command to retrieve a package from the Internet, and automatically evoke your customized installation script. Each installation script (CL Script) may be different, depending on the package, but use a standard name, following a calling convention.

And some standard API's for updating a license key repository, and other stuff like that.

-Nathan.



----- Original Message ----
From: James H. H. Lampert <jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, July 8, 2009 9:50:00 AM
Subject: Packaging for "Smart Business," anyone?

I'd love to keep on making puns about "the name of the platform we work
on," but I've actually got a legitimate question.

Packaging software for "Smart Business" distribution: We're getting
ready to do this with a product that, up to now, we've been installing
ourselves on customer systems. So as far as installation is concerned,
it's a blank slate (as opposed to QuestView, which has had a proprietary
installer for over a decade).

Anybody care to share any experience or insights on what works best with
"Smart Business"? The product in question uses the same proprietary
authorization code system as QuestView, and lives in a minimum of two
libraries: one for the product itself, and one or more "environment
libraries."

And if IBM's own "licensed program" distribution/installation tools are
what work best, where do I start looking for docs on how to use them?

--
JHHL