Re: autoconf in pure MSVC environment?

[Daniel Reed]

On 2004-09-07T10:51-0500, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
) Installing Cygwin is similar in magnitude to installing another
) operating system.  Cygwin just happens to be subordinate to Windows.
) Perhaps not all your users are Unix-literate or want to install
) another "operating system" on their Windows box in order to use the
) software?

The point is best addressed in the comment:

  If I install some proprietary binary only commericial software for
  Windows, it may come with any number of add-on libraries and support
  programs that are hidden behind the scenes.  Why is that any different
  than having a set of POSIX compatibility libraries and support
  programs hidden behind the scenes?

Cygwin's "kernel" is contained within cygwin1.dll, and much of its other
functionality is available as additional DLL files. Their use does not
require an OS-level installation.

The DLL files need to be in the same directory as the EXE file, or in the
user's executable path. Some components need additional support files, as
with ncurses which needs a terminfo data base. The core, however, is largely
embeddable.

Perhaps most complaints about embedding Cygwin are not technical in nature,
but are related to licensing. See http://cygwin.com/faq/faq_1.html#SEC4

(I will ask for the URL into redhat.com to be fixed, and I can relay
questions in the meantime.)


configure scripts' dependencies on things like awk, sed, bash, id, cut, etc.
might make it non-worthwhile to develop a strategy for using configure
outside of a UNIX-like environment (such as Cygwin).

-- 
Daniel Reed <address@hidden>    http://people.redhat.com/djr/   
http://naim.n.ml.org/
"Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't
work."