From: ptkwt@... (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2003-12-07T04:07:04+09:00
Subject: Running Ruby from a CD

I'm looking into a contract to develop a license manager/installation tool 
for a software CD.  The CD has several different tools on it and allows 
the user to install and use the software for a trial period.  The license 
manager/installation tool has to be able to determine if it's a trial 
license or a real license and it also has to allow the user to purchase a 
real license (by going online) for any or all of the products on the CD.
Oh, and it has to work with both Linux (by interacting with the rpm 
manager) and Windows (by interacting with the registry).

Currently they've done this tool in C++ and has no gui.  The customer is 
talking about an upgrade of the tool and a possible gui (and possibly 
using Tk for the GUI).  Of course, I'm 
thinking that there might be a possiblility to use Ruby for this, but the 
first problem is that Ruby isn't installed everywhere.  So then I got the 
idea to run Ruby directly from the CD somehow - has anyone done this sort 
of thing?

Also, since the same CD has to work on both Windows or Linux, I need to 
have two Ruby's installed.  How would I determine which one to run?

Phil