I've been working on a Linux Installer system. I created an archive format that has the headers and table of contents at the end. that way the executable can still run with the data embedded. recently i had a series of revelations so I made it much more extensible. Can anyone guess why? before you continue reading this post, I want you to think for awhile about embedding data at the end of executables.
That's right, application icons built in, meta data, dependency information, maybe even shared libraries embedded in, in the concept of the Mac package thingy. No, this wouldn't void the point of shared libraries: I didn't say *all* the libraries needed to be in the executable. And shared libraries can still be shared in memory. There's even more stuff possible. Getting the open source community to use it is my question. the format will be all standard once I stabilize my code and finish thinking through the design. The format will be open and completely non proprietary, there will be a library, and the tools to use it from the command line as well as all code in the project is GPLed. Why hasn't anyone else created such a standard format, and if anybody actually did (but I couldnt find it), then why didn't it catch on? if anybody knows, I would be extremely appreciative. I just think the features and usability improvements that coudl come out of something like Tick could be very beneficial for the Linux operating system in general.
