Software Design for Installability
Steve Simmons
Inland Sea
Abstract
In classic software design, little or no consideration is given to the
issue of installing the resulting package on the customer machine(s).
This is complicated by the rich variety of administrative policies and
styles used in UNIX1 installations. This paper will not attempt to
prescribe a specific method for software installation. Instead, it
will focus on (a) issues which make a package installable into highly
customized sites such that the package can be installed with minimal
disruption to both the site and the package and (b) the reprogramming
of system configurations in a style designed to minimize the impact of
that reprogramming.
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