Licensing Terms

[camelo]

Hi!

After evaluating several installer packages, we've nailed down to InstallAware, Wise and InstallShield, with InstallAware appearing to offer the best solution overall. My only remaining concern is licensing.

We will propably have a single developer responsible for creating and mantaining the project files, with the build being generated on a dedicated build machine using command line batch processing. Do we need two separate licenses for that?

We may also want to have a backup license in case we need to work on the project files but the above mentioned developer is out of action (say he hit by a bus, for example ). Would a floating license work in that case? How much would a floating license cost?

Best regards,

::Camelo

[camelo]

One more question. Because the list of files that goes into the installer is also used to build our linux distribution, ideally, we'd like to use an external text file to build the list of "Install Files" commands in the script. Is this possible in any way?

Cheers.

[CandiceJones]

Hi Camelo,

Sounds interesting! Which Linux distribution are we looking at here?

About licensing...with a Studio (or higher edition) license, you may freely redistribute the command line build tool (miabuild.exe), on as many machines as you like (even on end-user machines). This means you can purchase one Studio license for your developer, and once your developer has designed and coded the setup on his/her machine, you may build the actual setup on any machine that you like, without incurring any additional license fees.

About a floating license, we do offer floating licenses at a 50% surcharge. Please note that in the extreme case you describe below, you'd simply "transfer" the license - of course I sure hope that would never happen! However, if you really have a need to float your licenses, that is possible at a 50% surcharge.

Finally, the Install Files command works with wildcards only. It will not accept as input a text file for a file list. It also accepts compiler variables, so you could specify the wildcard pattern at built-time, even when building on the command line. If you simply must define all the Install Files commands at build time, and require the flexibility of manually emitting a command for each file, you may achieve that using the automation DLLs. Hopefully it won't have to come to that though - compiler variables are a lot easier and more flexible. If you do need the ultimate flexibility though, its good to know the automation route is available, letting you emit an entire setup project, and build it, from your own external application, without having to use the InstallAware IDE.

PLEASE NOTE.
ACTUALLY THE LICENSE TERMS HAS BEEN CHANGED FROM THE DATE OF THIS TOPIC

1) The miabuild.exe redistribution is strictly prohibited.
2) The only redistribution allowed for miabuild.exe is, when a Studio or higher license is purchased, then it is freely redistributable inside the network of an organization for unlimited build machines. It is NEVER distributable externally.
3) Only the automation DLLs are redistributable, and that requires a Studio Admin license.

[camelo]

Further analysing our requirements and how our current build process works, I think we'll be able to live without the automation interface. What we'll do is, for each individual packaging, using the existing build tools, create a directory tree with all the files that should go into the that specific distribution and make InstallAware include them all into the installer.

To save our clients time and bandwidth (our distros are 2Gb big), we are also considering packaging both the Windows and Linux files into a single installer (they are almost the same files, differing mostly in their line-endings). On a Windows system, the installation would proceed normally. On a Linux box, the files would de extracted into their destination folders and all line-endings converted.

One way of doing that is creating an uncompressed installation and then using a cross-platform compressor to build the final distributable zip or exe file. My only concern is that, although the files inside the Uncompressed\\data folder are easily accessible, the name mangling of the first level directory look like they are random, which may hinder the Linux side of things.

How would you suggest us to do it?

Best regards,

::Camelo

--
Marcelo A. Camelo (Client Engineer)
BigWorld Pty. Ltd. - Sydney, Australia

[camelo]

PS: we are talking about Fedora and Debian based distros.

[CandiceJones]

Hi Camelo,

The name mangling is intentionally not documented and is used internally by InstallAware to help make one-click patching and other tricky MSI internals seamlessly work. It may be altered in future releases of the product.

What I would do in your case is:

1) Ship a 7zip file directly on CD/DVD in compressed form
2) Expand that 7zip file to the hard disk directly at runtime when installing using the Extract 7Zip Archive command
3) Delete those expanded folders at runtime when uninstalling using the Delete Files Recursive command
4) Perform other setup tasks (like registry keys) normally

This way you can also:

1) Optionally download the 7zip file if not present on CD,
2) Use it from other platforms since 7zip is cross-platform
3) Not worry about the name mangling

Just an idea...hopefully it helps or sparks more

[camelo]

Thanks for the suggestions. The path I am now trying to follow is zipping all files tree (including the InstallAware wizard) into a software-installation-self-extracting-zip-archive. Upon extraction, the wizard will be lauched. Files will be copied from the temp directory, instead of actually installed. My only problem now is that I can't recursively copy files.

Extracting them form a 7zip archive, instead of just copying, would work, but then our linux users would have to go through two zip levels to get to their files (the self extracting zip then the 7zip).

If there is no way I can copy recursively, I can still use the standard-self-extracting-zip-archive, instead of the sotware-installation one. The difference is that the standard one will ask for the destination folder and extract the files straight into it, instead of putting them into the temp directory. The only reason I'd rather use the software-installation-self-extracting-zip is that it looks and feels more professional.

PS: I know it sounds strange to want use zip files when InstallAware is such a capable tool. The problem is that our product is, in great part, source code. This code will usually update an older version already in a version control system. Half of the time, our users are seasoned programmers that would much prefer having total control of how the files are copied into their system. That's why we want to allow them to use a zip distro. Ironically, the other half are impatient managers that want to evaluate our product as quickly and painless as possible or artists that don't even know what environment variables are. That's why we going after such a twisted deployment strategy.

[Gizm0]

You can create a welcome screen (A custom dialog) and put an option for each of the user groups you mentioned!
For artists installation will be with minimum interaction, to managers with more options and to developers with all the options available.
Using Component commands you can do whatever you want.
For example set the where the source code will be installed, and the .exe in a different place, etc etc..

I can provide consulting services to you and help you create it, at very reasonable fees.If you are interested, don't hesitate to mail me at pkefal (at) installaware (dot) com

[camelo]

I am doing something similar, but with different installer builds, instead of options at run-time. I am using the File Bag plugin to embed the files into the installer, instead of using the Install command. This way, we can provide a script to extract and convert the files in Linux. I believe I've got everything figured out now.

I can hardly overstate how satisfied I am with InstallAware. It's really a well rounded product, with enough capabilities and flexibility to be fun to work with. Quite the opposite of its most well known competitors.

I tried to buy our license today, but coudn't find the option of buying a floating license in the webstore. Can you help me with that?

PS: about the consulting services, I reckon I'd be in trouble if I was to tell my manager I needed to pay someone else to do the job he's already paying me to do . But thanks anyway.

[CandiceJones]

Hi Camelo!

Many thanks for your kind words!

Please drop sales@installaware.com an email mentioning the number of floating licenses and the product edition you're interested in, and they'll provide a quote and ordering URL for you.

[FrancescoT]

PLEASE NOTE.
ACTUALLY THE LICENSE TERMS HAS BEEN CHANGED FROM THE DATE OF THIS TOPIC

1) The miabuild.exe redistribution is strictly prohibited.
2) The only redistribution allowed for miabuild.exe is, when a Studio or higher license is purchased, then it is freely redistributable inside the network of an organization for unlimited build machines. It is NEVER distributable externally.
3) Only the automation DLLs are redistributable, and that requires a Studio Admin license.