0install: Overview

Anyone can distribute software

If you have a web-site, you can distribute your software;
Create one package that works everywhere;
With dependency handling and automatic updates;
There is no central point of control

Security is central

Installing a word-processor doesn't grant it administrator access;
Digital signatures are always checked before new software is run;
Users share libraries without having to trust each other;
Use with sandboxes and virtualisation is easy

You control your own computer

You don't have to guess what happens during installation;
Mix and match stable and experimental programs on a single system

Zero Install is a decentralised cross-distribution software installation system. Other features include full support for shared libraries (with a SAT solver for dependency resolution), sharing between users, and integration with native platform package managers. It supports both binary and source packages, and works on Linux, OS X, Unix and Windows systems. It is fully Open Source.

Make packages

FAQ Get Zero Install

0install introduction
(screencast with audio commentary)

Get involved!

If you'd like to join us, please introduce yourself on our friendly mailing list! You might also like to read the list of suggested ways to get involved.

News

Jul 2018: 0install 2.13 released, adding support for <file executable='true'>, and 0install 2.15 for Windows, with various changes including support for <executable-in-*> in <command>s.
May 2018: The main 0install.net web-site now supports https (due to GitHub adding support for it on custom domains).
Apr 2018: 0repo 0.6 released. This adds a new "0repo modify" command, which makes it easy to promote a release to "stable", and fixes an error about multiple sub-keys when used with newer versions of gpg.
Dec 2017: 0install 2.12.3 released. The main change is that the bug reporter now uses a new service (SourceForge no longer delivers email, so the old address had stopped working). There are also some minor improvements to the native package manager support on Debian, and code updates to work with OCaml 4.06 and Lwt 3.0. The web-site is now hosted on GitHub (the bug reporter was the only thing keeping us on SF). 0repo 0.5.2 was released, fixing some bugs.
Sep 2017: 0install 2.12.2 released. This fixes a bug handling large HTTP redirect pages and updates the build to cope with various upstream changes.
0repo 0.5 released. This provides better support for hosting on S3, has more configuration options to disable certain checks, and makes it easier to import missing archives.

[ full news archive ]

For more information see the mailing list archives and the history / roadmap page.