DELPH-IN is committed to the open-source development model. DELPH-IN resources typically are available under one of a small number of open-source licenses (where the MIT Licesen and LGPL are the two most common), and ongoing development is hosted in a version control system (be it either on the main DELPH-IN servers or elsewhere). Development in the past five or so years has exclusively focussed on GNU/Linux environments.

Somewhat like GNU/Linux, there are several ways of obtaining an installation of the DELPH-IN toolchain. DELPH-IN distributions differ in their mode of delivery, philosophy, and maintainers—seeking to cater to different target audiences.

A core subset of DELPH-IN resources were originally packaged and distributed by the LinGO Laboratory; hence this distribution is called the LinGO Builds, even though it is nowadays maintained at the University of Washington. This distribution bundles the LKB, [incr tsdb()], and the ERG, i.e. the set of tools required for interactive grammar development (plus one large grammar, for inspiration). LinGO Builds are comprised of a set of tar(1) archives, combined with an automated installer script (that downloads and unpacks archives), and some collateral files to ease user-level setup. This environment was originally created by StephanOepen but since 2010 is managed by DavidBrodbeck; it is described (together with mildly out-of-date information) on the LkbInstallation page. The contact address for this distribution is lingo@delph-in.net.

DavidBrodbeck at the University of Washington maintains a VirtualBox Appliance preloaded with Ubuntu Linux, the latest stable LinGO Build, emacs, and font support for many languages. This is a convenient option for those who would like to use the LKB and [incr tsdb()], but do not already have a GNU/Linux machine set up.

The LOGON Tree bundles a much larger set of tools and grammars than the LinGO Builds, distributed via SVN, and pre-configured in a way that eases interoperability and independence of configuration differences in the host environment (e.g. different versions of the Java Runtime Environment). For at least some grammars, this distribution is the closest we have come to a ‘turn-key’ release channel; see the ErgProcessing page for an example. For these reasons, the LOGON Tree is comparatively voluminous (requiring several gigabytes of available disk space). This distribution was created and is maintained by StephanOepen, and there is documentation available on the LogonTop page and its sub-pages. The contact address for this distribution is logon@delph-in.net.

As ACE matures, another viable run-time (if not yet grammar development option) for at least some grammars may be through the pre-compiled ACE (and ERG) binaries maintained by WoodleyPackard at http://sweaglesw.org/linguistics/ace/.