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At a Glance
OpenBundles is an Application and Resource Encapsulation and
Installation Standard.
OpenBundles is Operating System Independent, allowing
applications and resources to be packaged together in a way which
can be easily used across Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, and more.
OpenBundles is Proven, because it's built on techniques
already used by operating systems such as MacOS X, Nextstep, and
Acorn RiscOS, as well as operating environments such as
OpenStep, GnuStep, ROX, and others.
OpenBundles is Needed, because UNIX based systems need to
unify behind a single standard for graphical application
management and installation which can work across different desktop
systems (Gnome, KDE, GnuStep), and across different distributions
and distribution versions (RedHat 6, RedHat 7, Slackware, Debian, etc).
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What are OpenBundles?
OpenBundles are an Application and Resource
Encapsulation Standard. They provide a unified mechanism for
application icon, mimetype, and capability discovery, as well as
application launching.
OpenBundles are designed to allow a single binary application
bundle to run on Gnome, KDE, CDE, and more, across a variety
of UNIX and Linux flavors. This is made possible by turning
an application into a passive relocatable item (directory)
which can be installed merely by
copying it to any location on a system. Developers are left to
decide on a packaging mechanism, but simple .tgz or .zip archives are succient
in many cases. Desktop systems are responsible for interrogating an XML app-info file to
learn about the app and it's exports (icons, mimetypes, resources,
etc.) They are patterened after successful solutions from NeXTStep,
MacOS X, and UNIX Sysadmin "encap" style package installation.
You can read extensive information about MacOS X Bundles at the Apple Developer Website.
OpenBundles are proposed to initially affect only graphical application
installation. However, they have been seen to effectively organize
everything from plugin modules, to development frameworks
(libraries and headers), to command line tools.
In addition, OpenBundles offer these other advantages:
- Locating resources for Localization
- Multi-architecture applications
- "Native" looking applications built with scripting languages
- No Windows style "registry" to maintain
How can I learn more?
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