Think this could work? I am thinking something like .jar format.
considering one can already bundle code libraries in the same directory as patches/abstractions, what advantage does a format like .jar provide to offset the annoyance of having something to decompress when you want to start mucking with it?
I had a thought recently: if we treat Pd like Java, ie like a framework to be installed, then all we need to do is make a nice cross-platform app packaging format. To make this work, we'd need to have file associations working. They already work beautifully on Mac OS X, and basically work on Windows (but every double-click opens a new instance of Pd).
i'd hate to have 10 copies of maxlib just because it was in a .jar, or 30 copies of pthreadVC.dll. but those are facts of life on an OS whose idea of packaging is "click setup and click 'next' 10 times" or "search the web, download a disk image, decompress a disk image, copy something off a disk image, unmount the disk image, delete the disk image"..
If there was a format were you could bundle all needed files into a double-clickable file format, then it would work much like an app as long as you have Pd installed.
im definitely for the idea of smarter package management. but i dont htink .jar is the solution. perhaps mapping the gige/hcs namespace to a webservice so one can go to http://pure-data.info/library/osc/route/ and there are your binaries in subdirs like i386-linux/ mac-x86/, online docs, etc...