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Comment by mwilliamson | Hacker News Reader

You're absolutely right, but "relocatable" was the best word I could find that's used for the concept that was relatively accurate. The other usual adjective is "portable", but I felt that was misleading since you can't just stick the binaries on a USB stick, since the target computer needs to have whack-run installed, which requires root access.

Suggestions for alternatives are extremely welcome!

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I had the same concern - I too was confused when I read 'relocatable'. Some suggestions:

    * Movable
    * Location-Independent
    * Path-Independent
    * Path Neutral

We've been calling them "portable" much before usb sticks were around: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Executable

I suggest you reconsider. :)

I've been waiting to see a .dmg equivalent for Linux.

> I've been waiting to see a .dmg equivalent for Linux.

In a very literal technical sense I have no idea what this means. Linux can mount a file as if it is a disk with -o loop. I suspect you're really talking about something else. App bundles perhaps?

A single file on the filesystem, that acts as a complete application (i.e. can be copied to another system, and run on that new system by double-clicking on it, etc.)

It sounds like you're really talking about app bundles plus some kind of container (to make the app bundle a single file instead of a directory).

The thing about that is various *nix machines do not have a standardized user interface. Every Mac has Finder for example, so if Finder wants to call into various components (eg. to mount a .dmg on a double click) or create a metaphor layered on top of the directory concept (app bundle), there are a number of places to put that. A Linux system has no similar "one place" to make that consistent where it will be seen by everyone.

Personally I consider that a feature rather than a bug. One person's idea of a better way of working could break another person's perfectly good workflow. If you want a Mac, get a Mac, and leave the rest of us alone. :-)

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