Best practices for program distribution - OR - No such binary version (c, c++)?

[A. Daniel King_1]

Hi, folks.

I've just had a vendor/developer come to me and tell me something I can't quite believe. I received from said vendor a tarball of new scripts and binaries to install - with no installation instructions outside of, "Install these."

So, I asked for some basic items: version number, cksum, directory, ownerships, and permissions. What else do I need to ask for? Environment changes?

My vendor has come back and said, basically, that I don't need ownership/permission information. To the really strange part ... after some exposition about headers and libraries, this vendor said:

???Therefore, there is no version for a binary.???

Okay, I'd like to avoid jumping to conclusions, and I'd just like to check myself.

Is there such a thing as a binary "version" for binaries? I think there should AT A MINIMUM be a build version, regardless of the underlying headers and libraries - regardless of the language in question. I don't have access to the source, and some change control is necessary to avoid serious headaches!

What are the best practices for software distribution, and what are reasonable things for me to request of my vendor?

Thanks.

[Ravi_8]

Hi,

To install any s/w on HP it should be in binary or .depot form. check the vendor s/w in which format it is.

If the vendor insist, do the swinstall -s , if the s/w is not in binary , swinstall throws the errors

[H.Merijn Brand (procura]

It all depends on the customer, the vendor, and their mutual trust. We have some customers that don't care what's on their computer as long as it works, and I know about vendors that just state a random version number if asked for just to satisfy the customer.

Of course good software requires version control, but some packages are built out of many sources. All these sources might have version control, but the complete thingy might not. Stating all the versions of the subcomponents would probably not satisfy a customer either.

Just to add a ??? 0.02 to the confusion :)

Enjoy, have FUN! H.Merijn