[CMake] Re: OpenSceneGraph and CMake

[E. Wing]

>> Anyway, I would really like to improve this current Makefile scheme if
>> possible so it is more a one step build without the user having to
>> intervene with setting environment paths or 'installing'.

> Is that even technically possible in the underlying build dependencies?

Yes, I believe this is technically possible. OSG has a lot of
flexibility about file paths.

Certainly it is currently possible to build without "installing". As I
stated, the Makefile system does this provided you setup enough
environmental paths. Xcode does this using cross-project dependencies.
(I'm not sure how the Visual Studio stuff is setup though.)

Run-time I consider a separate issue. But I think it's still
technically possible. On Unixes with RPATHs or environmental
variables, you can get runtime support without installing. On Windows,
if the environment paths are set to find the dlls or all the dlls and
executables are in the same directory, you can generally run. And on
OS X, there are a lot of biases in the os and tools so you can run
anywhere without *installing*. One frequent reason people might run
without the formal *installation* is that OSG has yet to put out a
release with a stable API and ABI.  Furthermore, point releases have
been few in-between and usually the answer has been 'pull from CVS' to
get around bugs. So its very difficult and dangerous for people with
production code to just install a new version of OSG without testing
it in isolation first.


Thanks,
Eric