[Bioc-devel] Binary file (flash SWF) in source package?

[Gábor Csárdi]

Martin,

thanks a lot for your answer.

About the issues you mentioned. The binary is a single file and it is
400Kb. It is (well, supposed to be) completely platform independent.
As you mentioned, licensing should be OK. (Contrary to the license of
Flex itself, that has some interesting things. But luckily, these do
not apply to the binary created with Flex.)

Best Regards,
Gabor

On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 4:05 PM, Martin Morgan <mtmorgan at fhcrc.org> wrote:
> Hi Gabor --
>
> Gábor Csárdi wrote:
>> Dear BioC developers,
>>
>> what is your current position regarding binary files in BioConductor
>> source packages? I have a package that visualizes overlapping
>> biclusters, and the interactive visualization part in written in Adobe
>> Flex. Flex creates a simple platform-independent SWF binary file that
>> can be used with most web browsers.
>>
>> Putting this file into the source package has the advantage that one
>> does not have to have Adobe Flex installed to install the R package.
>> In addition to the binary, the Flex source code would be also included
>> in the package, of course, and the package license would be GPL.
>> Adobe Flex is free, as free beer, but it is not free or open source
>> software.
>
> Thinking out loud a little...
>
> Some of the issues are licensing (ok in this case), added security
> responsibilities associated with binary file redistribution,
> cross-platform compatibility of redistributed binaries, and potentially
> substantially increased package size.
>
> On the other hand having unusual system dependencies has proven to be a
> significant challenge for us, and for our users -- even 'simple'
> installations can be complicated when there are multiple build machines,
> there can be challenging version-matching problems, it can be difficult
> to convey the system dependencies to the end users, etc.
>
> In this particular case I think we can proceed, but this isn't meant to
> be a general endorsement.
>
> Martin
>
>>
>> Thank you, Best Regards,
>> Gabor
>>
>
>
> --
> Martin Morgan
> Computational Biology / Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
> 1100 Fairview Ave. N.
> PO Box 19024 Seattle, WA 98109
>
> Location: Arnold Building M1 B861
> Phone: (206) 667-2793
>



-- 
Gabor Csardi <Gabor.Csardi at unil.ch>     UNIL DGM