Re: Roll back octave package dependencies?

[Andrew Janke]

On 4/23/20 7:54 AM, Ian McCallion wrote:
> On Thursday, 23 April 2020, Andrew Janke <address@hidden
> <mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
> 
> 
>     On 4/23/20 4:45 AM, Ian McCallion wrote:
>     >  
>     > I have often thought Octave should have a "redistributable" that
>     can be
>     > sent to people who don't need or want to run Octave but simply want to
>     > use an application that uses Octave.
>     >
>     > This can be accomplished with Matlab by compiling the application code
>     > and sharing it (although accompanied by a fairly large redistributable
>     > runtime library I believe).
> 
>     The Matlab Runtime is a 6 GB install. It's more heavyweight than a
>     regular Matlab installation for most users, because it includes
>     (most of) Matlab and all the toolboxes that compiled Matlab code can
>     make use of.
> 
>     "Compiled" Matlab code produced with the Matlab Compiler isn't
>     compiled in any real sense - it's just obfuscated M-code, which runs
>     in an embedded Matlab interpreter that isn't subject to Matlab's
>     normal licensing restrictions, and doesn't have the Desktop IDE GUI
>     bits.
> 
>     Something more akin to "frozen" Python applications might be more
>     appropriate for Octave. But that would be a big install, too: We're
>     sort of doing that for Octave.app (sans the hypothetical user's
>     actual application code), and once you pull in all Octave's
>     dependencies, it's a 2-3 GB install.
> 
>     "Install Octave, but not the build-time dependencies" might be the
>     best approach for most users. The IDE-specific parts of Octave
>     probably don't take up much space, and there are no licensing concerns.
> 
>  
> 
> Yes, that sounds right. The size does not really matter, but the install
> and uninstall should be in some way controllable by the app to conceal
> whatever is going on under the hood from the end user and so eliminate
> possibilities for him to make a mistake.
> 
> Effectively an "install octave" api?
> 
> Cheers... Ian

Ah, yes! A way to create an installer for your application that bundles
the installer for the correct version of the runtime (or just plain old
Octave) that the application needs. That way you don't pay the 2-3 GB
for each different application using the same version of the runtime.
Yeah, the Matlab Compiler has an installer-creation option like that.
The Microsoft .NET and Visual C++ Redistributables work that way too,
and it seems to work out well for them. That makes sense.

Cheers,
Andrew