Subject: Re: cygwin.dll
From: [email-masked] (Jim Balter)

17 Jan 1997 21:07:10 -0800
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Distribution: cygnus
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Original-To: James Osburn <[email-masked]>
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James Osburn wrote:
> 
> My two bits on the cygwin.dll and cygnus in general.
> 
> First the cygwin.dll is to large It should not
> contain the unix to win32 interface.

Since the cygwin C library is UNIX code that depends upon UNIX
semantics, if cygwin.dll didn't contain the unix to win32 interface,
it *wouldn't work*.  If you want to separate out the libc and libm
routines into separate DLLs, that can be done; if you want to pare
down the cygwin routines, that can be done.  As has been posted here
many times now, Colin Peters has done some of this; go check out his
work.

> Second, there should
> be a facility to compile statically and to separate the
> C runtime and C++ runtimes into seperate dlls and statically
> linkable libs.

libg.a is a statically linkable lib.

> The task of porting all the gnu unix to win32
> via the gcc should be dropped. It poisons an otherwise
> very good idea: gcc for win32.

I cannot fathom the thinking that says that the cygwin project,
which is a project to port a unix environment to Windows, should
drop porting a unix environment to Windows.  If *you* want just gcc
for Windows, and you think it should be divorced from the unix
library and the GNU configure facility and all the rest, then why don't
*you* go out and write it?  The cygnus people are a *GNU* support
organization; cygwin, as I understand it, was envisioned as a port
of the *GNU* utilities to Windows.  And many of us have benefited from
it.  The only poison I see here is the suggestion that something that
many other people want should be dropped because you don't happen
to want it.

If you want a more minimal system go check out Colin Peters' work.
Maybe you could even lend him a hand.

--
<J Q B>
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