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I was experimenting a bit with NSIS (http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page) for Windows-based installers. But, clearly, for OA needs, a multiplatform-based installer is the solution for those who don't want to mess with Zip files.

What are your recommendations for GPLv2-compatible installers?

There's no true multi-platform installer.

 Besides, Linux users fall more in the crowd of 'get package and extract' at the majority, and the ease-of-use side would probably do it through a packaging system (apt etc).  I think the last game installer I encountered on linux was for ETQW, and that was terminal-based much like id's DeICE days.


I'm for the convenience of installers, but I also understand the whole paranoia of installers especially with OpenCandy / Google Toolbar going around in 'sponsored' installers nowadays.... OA having an official installer could possibly lead to confusion with another installer that bootstraps bloat, and then we'd get blamed for something.

Also OA used to use InnoSetup for the installer, which doesn't produce data that could be extracted with 7-zip (like NSIS does) so unfortunately they can't double as archives.

Delivering the script used in order to create the installer (i.e the .nsi or .nsh of NSIS) wouldn't help matters, would it?

It is OK to have a non-GPL installer for a GPL program, because the installer is not necessary for the day-to-day running of the program -- they are separate from each other.

I have used NSIS for one of my projects -- it is even available for Linux, so I can build the Win32 installer without leaving Linux, which suits me very much :)