The unfortunate problem with this is that while piping directly into bash can be exploited, it remains as one of the easiest ways to install programs.

Taking RVM for example. Their instructions are to run this: `curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable`. The script that is executed is 887 lines long. The installation is "complex", requiring a lot of different stages. Now, the solution to this is "Use a package manager". Sure, that works in a lot of cases. However, when you have something like RVM which is used across several major operating systems, and hundreds of different flavours, each with their own quirks and package managers it suddenly gets difficult to manage each of these.

The problem we face is, how can we make it easy to install something, while still being safe and maintainable?

Breaking this down further, there are 2 issues to solve. The first is "How do we ensure what we download is what the maintainer says that we should download?". I.e. How do we make sure there are no malicious injections. That one is simple. Use SSL.

The second issue is, "I want to install this thing but I don't know if I can trust the installer". Are you crazy!? This isn't an issue. If you don't trust the installer, you sure as hell can't trust the product. If you don't trust either of them, then you automatically don't trust the other and shouldn't be installing it.

The result is that, yes, people can maliciously serve up code when you pipe the output of curl through bash without you realising. However, this is no different than blindly trusting and installing a script.

I'm not sure that really changes with an install script. You've got several major operating systems, hundreds of flavours with all kinds of quirks. And you don't even know what shell you're really running on. How do you know your install script will work in any reasonable way?

For example, all reasonable package managers will make sure existing files aren't overwritten, existing configs are not modified, all ownership/modes are reasonable by default. Sure, you can override that in post-install script, but it will stand out that you're doing something non-standard, because there's a post-install script.

> how can we make it easy to install something, while still being safe and maintainable?

Have you seen FPM? (https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm) It provides a nice, simple(ish) abstraction over all the packaging craziness.

> Are you crazy!? This isn't an issue. If you don't trust the installer, you sure as hell can't trust the product.

I do not trust either the installer or the app. If I have a simple package to deploy, I can: 1) check that there are no post/pre-install scripts 2) install the files on the system 3) contain/sandbox them using selinux / grsec / apparmor / chroot / separate user. I cannot easily do the same thing with an installer script, which by definition wants to merge foreign files into my running system.

Even better, it's in the interest of app creator to care about this and provide sandboxing by default, even if they trust the app.