If people were following the the WIX-Users Mailing list, they would find that it has been a little hot recently. The first instance (as far as my knowledge goes) was with Michael creating a validation tool for the WIX Toolset called 'smoke'. I personally found it very useful as it could easily be included as a part of the build process. The output is in a structured XML format that makes it easier for us to crunch and build reports. But, some of the members in the group did not share the same level of enthusiasm. Michael seemed to be put off by that and included a disturbing update to his blog entry. Rob immediately acknowledged it and posted a blog entry about being thick skinned.
Recently, history repeated with Marc Bogers starting to ask about the ICE 33 warnings as Tallow populates the Registry table instead of the Registry Tables group. Firstly, Tallow is only a helper utility and is anything but perfect. It is useful but does not exactly produce usable WIX code. Heck, it doesn't even write to a file. Rob had said that ICE33 warnings can be ignored as it created some "strange behavior". More precisely, the resiliency associated with advertisement would prompt the end user for the media when Windows Installer detects some inconsistencies with the CLSID registration. Michael dismissed the argument that it arose from sloppy authoring and had nothing to do with MSI itself. Follow Michael's blog entry on COM registration for more information.
As we all know, Rob does not agree on a lot of things like inserting GUIDs while generating output with Tallow, using the Registry Tables Group and so on. I am sure that he has good reasons behind them. I am also sure that many people (including me), have modified Tallow to suit their requirements. Some people are using Riko's Tallow that does write to the Regsitry table's group using the Class and TypeLib elements. (On a totally different note, Riko, when are you going to release that code of yours?) I have a version of Tallow that creates components with GUIDs and names them appropriately. I am pretty sure that I am aware of the consequences and I have written code to persist the component information for future reference.
This freedom is the inherent beauty of open-source software. People can use their own ingenious imagination to tailor the tool to best suit their requirements. Of course, some of our opinions differ and we need a healthy debate to analyze these opinions and make the best of it. We should refrain from flaming and should try to embrace new ideas. Rob may be the BDFL for the WIX Toolset but I am sure that he would like the WIX Toolset to be successful and that helps developers create better installers without breaking much sweat. I tried hard not to write about this topic but after reading Michael's blog and comments with certain conspiracy theories, I wanted to voice my opinion too. I am sorry if I have hurt anybody's feelings.