Re: WIN32 compilation, the spirit of GNU software.

[Tim Ellis <Tim Ellis gamet com>]

> >I would encourage you to do whatever work you can to make the plain
> >vanilla CVS compile for both Unix and Win32 without one-off tweaks.
>
> To me this sounds like pure ignorgance. There is a _native_ win32
> port of Dia since (dia/ChangeLog) :

It is pure ignorance. I've never compiled or even begun to see what it
takes to compile the Win32 version of Dia. I'm deferring to the experts on
this subject.

>From the discussion, I can only guess that "./configure ; make ; make
install" doesn't work. If Sr. DuPont can make that work, then I guess I'd
be happier, regardless of whether I agree with his (or your?) political
stance on things. I would want "./configure ; make ; make install" to
work, because technically, that's what I understand, that's what I think
is a Good Thing, and that's what makes me smile at night.

I don't understand the GTK Win32 port, I don't understand Microsoft build
systems. I understand Unix, automake, X, and gcc.

So I'm ignorant. This is fine. I won't complain, especially if I can
build/run Dia the same as I build/run Apache, PostgreSQL, OpenSSH, or
whatever else I get a wild notion to build and run.

> But feel free to go right ahead to require an *ix emulation
> and also an X server to get a restricted version of Dia
> to run on win32. Only a real moron may also want to let wine 
> run on top of the X server running on top of cygwin ...

Personally, I don't mind requiring *ix emulation and an X server. Cygwin
gives us both those things pretty transparently... Am I missing something?
Is there some Win32 platform on which Cygwin/X doesn't work?

In what fashion would Dia be restricted? I've run it from a Linux box
displaying on X running under Cygwin and it appears identical to when it
displays on X running under Linux... Why would the fact that the Dia
executable itself is compiled under Win32 change this?

Where does wine fit in here? Why would I need wine to either compile or
run Dia in Win32??? Why would I ever even attempt to compile or run wine
in a Win32 environment at all? I would hope I could just run Win32 code
natively in a Win32 environment.

> BTW: one of the FAQs about the gtk win32 port is it it's 
> integration with cygwin. It simply has none because gtk+ is 
> ported natively and nowadays glib includes most of the bits 
> to make it a real cross platform tookit.

I am aware that GTK has a Win32 port. I don't see how it helps Sr. DuPont
in his current predicament. Perhaps I'm speaking from ignorance again,
because I'm just saying what I think I know from reading between the
lines, but he's trying to take a plain vanilla Dia CVS snapshot and a
plain vanilla Cygwin install, and then to do a "./configure ; make ; make
install" and have it work.

At what point does that cease to make sense?

-- 
Tim Ellis
Senior Database Architect
Gamet, Inc.