Delivering Software, Electronically?

zpengo asks: "I'm trying to find the best way to implement a large-scale Electronic Software Delivery (ESD) service for my software company. I've been able to find very little information online (after weeks of research) so I must take it to America's best and brightest. Have you ever worked with ESD on a higher than plain-vanilla FTP level, and if so, what did you learn from it? When do you consider the product 'delivered'? Was it worth it? (I'm planning to put together a public domain whitepaper on the subject with the information I gather, to help fill in the gaps I found while researching online)."

Product delivery

[Anonymous Coward]

When do you consider the product 'delivered'?

When it's available on Kazaa?

Ehem...

[ekrout]

I've been able to find very little information online (after weeks of research) so I must take it to America's best and brightest.

Um, this is Slashdot, dude...

Best and brightest?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been able to find very little information online (after weeks of research) so I must take it to America's best and brightest.

Good idea, but what are you doing on Slashdot?

"to America's best and brightest"

[steveadept]

If that's what I am, I fear for our nation!

Re:Ehem...

[Servo]

Hey, he's new here, OBVIOUSLY. :)

ESD

[cscx]

Always make sure you're wearing one of those wrist-strap thingies.

Re:Ehem...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, the crowd who beleive in the business-model...

1: Write free software.
2: ?
3: Profit! ...is hardly the best and brightest :)

America's Best and Brightest?

[guttentag]

I've been able to find very little information online (after weeks of research) so I must take it to America's best and brightest.

When the folks at Mensa solve your problem, will you let this ragtag international band of Slashdotters know?

Re:I do!

[Superfreaker]

erm, that should read 5,000 per week. Shit, I even used that damn preview button. I should walk my fat ass into oncoming traffic.

Re:Ehem...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, it should have read

" I've been able to find very little information online (after weeks of research) so I must take it to America's best and brightest. But before that, let me ask on Slashdot..."

Existing standards and design patterns

[hargettp]

A lot standard exist; whether they are useful depends on the platform you are targeting and/or the architecture of your product. You've shared nothing about either, so I'll just point you at some general standards that you may find helpful, or as sample design patterns that may bring you closer to your goal. Check out the OSD specification [w3.org] at the Web Consortium's main site. An XML-based software description language, it's raison d'etre is electronic delivery of software. I know Microsoft used the format at one point, and I know of at least one other company that architected their product to use the OSD language for software installation as well. An alternative to the OSD model is Sun's Java Web Start [sun.com], tailored to automatic installation of software for the Java platform. If you still need to roll your own, may I suggest that you consider the package format [debian.org] used in the Debian GNU/Linux distribution as a good design pattern to follow? Because the format exposes extensive amounts of meta-data in each package, a complete array of tools exist to automatically resolve, download, and install dependencies--one of the major benefits of using Debian as a Linux platform. Finally, if you are a member of the ACM, their online Digital Library will no doubt have extensive information, as would the IEEE online resources (again, membership required). A free resource similar to those of the ACM and IEEE that I often find helpful is Citeseer [citeseer.org]. Hope some of those help!

Re:.....tell...us...more...

[scott1853]

Don't be scared, if someone wants to look up your company, he is already well capable of doing it

Like somebody smart enough to click on his name in the story ;)

But who is going to write your Draconian EULA?

[Proudrooster]

Don't forget that once you have distributed your software over the Internet to an untrustworthy, evil user, s/he is going to give it away for free. S/he is going to start buring illegal copies of the software he downloaded for all his friends and will probably download it right into his P2P upload directory.

After the Electronic Software Delivery (ESD) is complete, the user has to get through the EULA so he can install it.

Just who are you going to get to write that EULA?

Might I humbly suggest,

http://www.evil-lawyers-who-write-eulas.com

These guys specialize in incomprehensible leagaleze and by the time they are done, your EULA will stand a proud 250 lines long and allow you to have your way with both the user of your software and his/her computer.

Good Luck!@

How about sneakernet

[Billly Gates]

You need a good removable storage device on both ends of the network which will act as the adapter. A cd-rw is good but it holds less but is faster to create and send down the sneakernet network. A tape drive is another popular adapter. It hold alot more but takes awhile to get the data ready for transfer. The office messenger transfer protocal ( or me ) would be the typically the transfer protocal which works great around the office or through several office buildings. However the messenger protocal does not work well for many wans since it can run around the office better then getting in a car and driving around the wan.

However I recommend third party fedex or ups wans. They add great routing and delivery support and would mix your data with their own delivery network. They integrate well with the messenger protocal since they both use the mail room gateway as a standard to retrieve and sometimes even store data. The mailroom is the default gateway between the messenger and fedex and ups protocals.

The downside of course can be transfer time and very high latency. For example using a third party network like fedex can take a day or two to ship the data to Hong Kong and can be pricy depending on how quick you want the data to move.

The good side of sneakernet is that when the network is down I can still get data from one side of the office to the next. When the network is congested I can still move around huge amounts of data depending on the store medium used. With me implementing the messenger layer of the sneakernet protocal suite, you do not have to worry about hiring any expensive consultans or installation fee's. All you need is the store medium like a tape or cd-rw drive on both nodes.

Ps. I am looking for work and wouldn't mind doing this at this point. :-)

Re:.....tell...us...more...

[Alsee]

Like somebody smart enough to click on his name in the story ;)

Not everyone who reads slashdot is a computer brainiac ya know. Why can't you just say what the damn AOL keyword is, so we can all find it?

-

Re:American?

[jo_ham]

British actually, can we have our language back now please?