[Brian Theado] - after seeing uses of the terms starkit and starpack (c.l.t [http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&th=4e68615e6be33dd0]) that didn't match my understanding, I wrote the following:

'''Starkit'''

[starkit] - has two meanings:
   1. A sealed application that requires only a runtime to execute
   2. A library that can be package required in support of creating a [starkit]

'sealed application' - all the necessary tcl files and binary files are 
contained within a single directory structure

A [starkit] can take many forms.  It imposes no constraints that a [starkit] 
must be a certain vfs format.  It doesn't even force the [starkit] to be a 
single file.  A [starkit] could be a set of extracted files on the file 
system.  It could be a single file containing an metakit vfs.  It could 
be a single file containing a zip vfs.  Pretty much any Tcl code that 
starts with the following incantation is a [starkit]:

 package require starkit
 starkit::startup

If a [starkit] is a single file vfs, then it starts with a header of that 
contains at least the following:

 package require starkit
 starkit::header mk4 -readonly

The mk4 in the above can be replaced by any vfs supported by the Tcl vfs 
package (metakit, zip, etc.).


'''Runtime'''

A runtime that can execute a [starkit] can take many forms.  The most 
common and most convenient in every case that I've encountered is the 
single file [tclkit].  However, nothing about [starkit]s imposes that [tclkit] 
must be used to run them.  A vanilla tclsh can be used to execute any 
[starkit] as long as the [starkit] (pure tcl) package is available and the 
tclsh has core vfs support (8.4 and greater) and the vfs package used by 
the [starkit] (if any) is available.

If a [freewrap] executable contained the [starkit] package and support for 
one or more tclvfs package, then it too could execute single file [starkit]s.

The [tclkit] runtime is itself a single file [starkit].  It doesn't contain 
the starkit::header lines from above and instead consists of an 
executable prefix with a metakit vfs suffix.  This vfs contains all the 
Tcl/Tk library scripts.  It also contains a subset of Tcl's encodings.

'''Encodings and tclkit:'''

Using only a [tclkit], the [sdx] utility, and the desired encodings files, 
tclkit can be updated to support any encodings that Tcl supports.  See 
http://www.equi4.com/tkunicode.html for step-by-step instructions.

The encodings can be added on the fly and therefore don't have to be 
part of the runtime and can reside in a starkit instead.  See 
http://www.equi4.com/pipermail/starkit/2004-May/001991.html for some 
details.

'''From starkit to starpack'''

Converting a tclkit+starkit into a [starpack] involves only copying the 
files from the starkit's vfs into the vfs suffix at the end of the 
tclkit executable.

'''Conclusion'''

In my experience, the starkit mechanism is so simple to use, flexibly 
defined and imposes so few constraints, that it takes some work to go 
wrong with them.  When I come across cool applications in other 
scripting languages, I find myself wishing they were as easily 
deployable and installation-free as starkits/starpacks.
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See also [No Magic or Policy in Starkits]