[wix-users] [SUSPICIOUS] Is WiX 4.0 dead?

[Rob Mensching]

A couple good questions. Let me try to provide the missing context.


First, WiX v4.0 isn't dead. We are making progress but it is way slower than I'd like. I know I don't write about that enough on my blog but we do talk about it the WiX Online Meetings (you can get the highlights here: https://www.firegiant.com/blog/ if you can't/don't attend in person/want to watch the recordings).

There are two things that impact WiX v4 progress:

1. The WiX v3.x security releases really taxed us. We felt we had to address them quickly (I assume everyone agrees) but they came at inopportune times. That caused real disruption to the schedules in our "day jobs". Which leads to second point.

2. The people that work on the WiX toolset today have been really busy with other things. One of those things is the Desktop Bridge/AppX, which is now called MSIX (I'll blog about it more now that details are out). Developing that solution took tremendous amount of effort from a couple of WiX Toolset's core contributors (namely, Bob and I). You can see the results of that labor here: https://www.firegiant.com/r/appx/  (just replace the word "AppX" with "MSIX", it's the same thing). Which leads to my next point.


MSIX. Kevin is right and WiX is well positioned to support MSIX. It isn't as easy as you might think and (as I just mentioned) we've poured a significant amount of resources into developing the solution at FireGiant. For that reason (which basically comes down to the fact that I'd like to keep putting food on the table at home), FireGiant is not currently planning to contribute MSIX support to the WiX toolset OSS project. 


Finally, where does that leave WiX v4 progress?

As always, you can get involved. Developing WiX v4 code is usually what people think of first. But that (probably) takes the most effort. You can also get involved by improving our documentation. You can get involved by investigating bugs and providing a targeted example that clearly reproduces the issue. You can answer questions and encourage others as they learn the WiX Toolset. All those (and others I haven't thought of) are ways to take load off the core contributors so our volunteer hours are spent writing code.

The above is about spending your time to help the WiX community directly. If your company depends on the WiX Toolset, you might consider purchasing a support contract from FireGiant (https://www.firegiant.com/services/).  That is an indirect way to fund the WiX Toolset since all fixes for FireGiant customers are published back. If the top 100 companies that use the WiX Toolset had support contracts with FireGiant, we'd have a lot of resources to dedicate to improving the WiX Toolset.

Having made the pitch for my company's existence, I want to take a moment and thank all of you that answer questions on this mailing list. Seeing questions answered here takes a huge weight off my shoulders. I really do appreciate those of you that take the time share your experience with the WiX Toolset with those looking for help.

	Thank you.


In the end, nothing is dead. We're just working within our resource limitations. 


_______________________________________________________________
 FireGiant  |  Dedicated support for the WiX toolset  |  http://www.firegiant.com/

-----Original Message-----
From: wix-users <wix-users-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> On Behalf Of Kevin Marshall via wix-users
Sent: Wednesday, May 9, 2018 8:00 AM
To: wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org
Cc: Kevin Marshall <kevin.marshall at musco.com>; wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org
Subject: Re: [wix-users] [SUSPICIOUS] Is WiX 4.0 dead?

Reading this, it seems to me like Wix is well positioned moving forward. I can't speak to the on ice part, but it seems like it should be easy for Wix to extend to support MSIX.

Thanks,

Kevin Marshall

WiX Toolset Users Mailing List <wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org> on Wednesday, May 9, 2018 at 7:20 AM -0600 wrote:
 After going to a new PC with Windows 10 I tried to keep my toolbox tidy -  including avoiding age-old stuff like dotNet 3.x and 2.x. For several  months I kept my old machine for running WiX builds and nothing else, but  when other tools (Python 3.6 installer) reqired the old dotNet versions  anyway, I caved in to the pressure.
 It is about half a year since we saw anything about WiX 4.x. I saw the  latest blog entry from Rob Mensching about MSIX - is *that* the reason  WiX 4.0 is kept on ice?