>>torste+a4
Even Makefile / autoconfig / automake can be user-unfriendly in the face of dependencies.

I used to distribute open source bindings to a commercial+proprietary library. I couldn't provide builds because I didn't have a distribution right to the proprietary license, even though I could test it on my own copy.

These days I'm having a tough time providing a build for macOS because my Python extension uses OpenMP, and there are several different ways to get OpenMP for that OS. See https://pypackaging-native.github.io/key-issues/native-depen... for details, including how PyTorch vendors Intel's libiomp while Scikit-learn vendors clang's libomp or GNU's libgomp.

Rather than deal with that mess, I provide source, and test with libgomp.

>>fghoro+0m
I've never used VyOS but I was wondering what the problem would be. This is what I did to build a .iso (I have no idea if it works or not, I don't have the hardware to test it on), courtesy of their manual https://docs.vyos.io/en/latest/contributing/build-vyos.html:

    $ git clone -b sagitta --single-branch https://github.com/vyos/vyos-build
    $ cd vyos-build
    $ docker run --rm -it --privileged -v $(pwd):/vyos -w /vyos vyos/vyos-build:sagitta bash
    [docker] $ sudo make clean
    [docker] $ sudo ./build-vyos-image iso --architecture amd64 --build-by "j.randomhacker@vyos.io"

This caused an error message, which I solved using the first result on Google:

    [docker] $ sudo mount -i -o remount,exec,dev /vyos
    [docker] $ sudo ./build-vyos-image iso --architecture amd64 --build-by "j.randomhacker@vyos.io"
    [docker] $ exit
    $ ls -l build/*.iso
    -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 502267904 jan 22 23:55 build/live-image-amd64.hybrid.iso
    -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 502267904 jan 23 00:04 build/vyos-1.4-rolling-202401222255-amd64.iso

I picked 1.4 because that seems to be the latest LTS branch. Now, I'm not sure why it apt updated twenty times during the process, but after waiting a few minutes, I was left with what seems like a perfectly fine .ISO.

Is this harder than downloading an .ISO from a website? Yes, of course. Do I expect everyone to be able to follow the manual? Probably not. But that's why there are ways to pay VyOS, this is a company doing open source after all.

If you can spare some server capacity and are willing to put in effort, you could set up a script to run the build process automatically and host the ISO files for everyone to download, as long as you remove all the trademarked branding of course.

>>torste+a4
> the build process [...] It's not strictly required by the definition of open source, but....

But it is required by Free Software licenses. GPLv2 §3[0]:

> The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable.

GPLv3 §1[1]:

> The “Corresponding Source” for a work in object code form means all the source code needed to generate, install, and (for an executable work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities.

[0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html