WIX under Mono

[Kevin Kofler]

Paul <paul <at> all-the-johnsons.co.uk> writes:
> I've been looking at porting WIX to run cleanly under Mono as it would
> be both a useful package for cygwin as well as our friends over at
> Novell (allows them to get the open source goodness of Mono onto Win32).

As you have noticed, this is one of those M$ "Open Source projects" which, 
while technically Free Software themselves, are intentionally designed to be 
both completely useless on anything other than Window$ and dependent on other 
proprietary M$ tools.

> 1. It is reliant on the HTML help 1.4 SDK. I'm not sure if this is a
> binary only app available from MS or not.

It's binary only and Window$ only. It doesn't even work in WINE (or didn't last 
I checked).

> 2. It is reliant on the MSI SDK. Again, not sure if this a binary only
> from MS or not

This is also binary only, and almost certainly Window$ only too (and it may or 
may not work in WINE). And WIX is completely useless without that SDK.

Just so you don't waste your time in the future: If you see an "Open Source 
project" from M$, you can be almost certain it's just an addon for some 
proprietary toolchain, usually M$VC or something related and that it's 
intentionally Window$-only and unfit for cross compilation.

For an actually Free Software generator for Window$ installer which does run on 
Fedora (the generator, not the generated installers - though those do run in 
WINE), look at NSIS. Richard Jones from the MinGW SIG is currently working on 
packaging NSIS.

        Kevin Kofler