The Zero Install system

The Zero Install system aims to provide a better way of installing software than traditional systems (tarballs, apt-get, bundles, setup.exe, etc). Here are some of our goals:

	Anyone can install software You don't have to be the administrator (root) just to install a word-processor [ more ]
	Anyone can distribute software You don't need to be blessed by a distribution (or anyone else) to be part of Zero Install; The system is completely decentralised [ more ]
	It doesn't matter whether software is installed or not You just run it. Zero Install handles the rest (downloading and caching as needed) [ more ]
	Security If one user downloads a malicious program, other users aren't affected; Users can share downloads without having to trust each other; Installation does not execute any of the downloaded code; Digital signatures are always checked before new software is run [ more ]

Zero Install introduction (screencast with audio commentary)

News

Jul 2008

0export can be used to create a self-extracting "setup.sh" installer, for distribution on CD, etc.

Jun 2008

GNOME and KDE integration is now much improved, with a new interface for managing applications you've added to the menu. See this screenshot at the top of the policy tutorial.

May 2008

The new deb2zero utility can publish a Debian package in a Zero Install feed.

Apr 2008

0launch can now fallback to using a mirror automatically. The second part of the video tutorial is now up.

Mar 2008

Zero Install interview on netbsd.org.

Feb 2008

Zero Install 0.32 has been released, with some large-scale refactoring of the Python API and improvements to the GUI. I've also added some tutorial videos to the site.