[omniORB] omniORB binary builds for Unix. Comments/suggestions please.

[Tingle, Alex]

I plan to build omniORB binaries for a variety of Unix platforms, so that
Duncan can upload them to Sourceforge. How does everyone think I should
package the binaries?

1. The very simple option: Just follow the normal build procedure.

 mkdir build; cd build
 ../configure
 make; make veryclean
 cd ../..
 tar cvfz omniORB-binaries.tgz omni

Originally, Duncan & I agreed that I would build the binaries as normal and
then just tar up the omni directory again. Users could then just use the
normal `make install'. However once I started to do that, it occurred to me
that it wouldn't necessary be much use to anyone but me.

`../configure' finds a copy of `install' that doesn't necessarily exist on
someone else's box. So `make install' is likely to fail.

Would the result be useful to people on it's own, even though `make install'
might not work?


2. Do a build install, and then tar up the install directory.

 mkdir /tmp/omniORB-binaries
 mkdir build; cd build
 ../configure --prefix=/tmp/omniORB-binaries
 make; make install
 cd /tmp
 tar cvfz omniORB-binaries.tgz omniORB-binaries

This would give people a pre-installed version of omniORB, but without any
of the documentation or source code. They could untar it into a home
directory or even just copy the files into /usr/local or wherever. Would
this be useful?


3. Something else?

Perhaps a new configure script, designed to find just basic things like
`install'. I'm open to suggestions.


Finally, there is the issue of non-omniORB libraries. If these binaries are
to be useful for people without C++ compilers installed, they will need the
C++ runtime libraries. It's usually OK to distribute the runtime libraries
for commercial compilers, but should I bother? Put another way: is a binary
distribution any use without the C++ runtime libraries?

regards,

-Alex