Re: [Mingw-cross-env-list] Proposal: Cflags.private entry for pkg-config

[LM]

Volker Grabsch wrote:
>The community of people who cross-compile their applications
>to Windows is not that big. Most people use a native Windows
>system, install VS Express, or use Cygwin.

>Moreover, even those who do cross-compiling for Windows are
>usually doing that "by hand", i.e. running ./configure, make,
>by hand, fix issues as they appear by hand, and are so glad
>it somehow works they document their work only superficially,
>if at all.

 

Even when developers try to automate for Windows builds (cross-compiler or native) there can be difficulties.  I've sent in lots of patches to various projects to get Windows builds to work.  Sometimes, they're accepted.  Sometimes, they get messed up by future releases because those releases are not tested well (if at all) for Windows.  Some projects won't accept patches for Windows systems.  They simply won't support it.  I just hit a problem like that with glib from gtk.  They would not accept any patches to get the configure script to get the makefile to run without failing on one of the development platforms I use.  I have an ever growing list of patches to get various Open Source applications and libraries to build on various platforms.  I've added several patches to the fltk site because some of the projects listed there are now defunct and there's no way to get the patches added in to the source.  There are also certain sites to go to if you're looking for patches for Windows builds such as the gnuwin32 project, the msysgit project has some useful patches and for Watcom developers, their wiki has patches.   I sometimes even check the Linux from Scratch or Debian sites for patches to a piece of software.  They'll often have patches that didn't make it into the source tarballs and many of them are useful across multiple platforms.

 

I wish the situation was better, but it's always helpful when projects like this one document/create reproduceable builds.  Most Open Source applications I attempt to build fail without patches or specific compile flags.  I often find myself wondering (when certain projects offer executables) how they managed to build them, because I certainly couldn't repeat the steps without having to make changes to the source code.

 

Sincerely,

Laura

http://www.distasis.com/cpp/patches.htm