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Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 20:00:36 -0400
To: Edward Peschko <esp5 AT pge DOT com>, cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
From: Larry Hall <cygwin-lh AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: Re: merging mingw and cygwin
In-Reply-To: <20031011001648.GG2659@mdssirds.comp.pge.com>
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At 08:16 PM 10/10/2003, Edward Peschko you wrote:
>hey,
>
>I've been playing around with mingw and cygwin, and was wondering why these were separate
>projects? I've been trying to get a unix API moved over to windows; I want a Unix 
>environment, but at the same time want to be able to make Win32 native binaries, 
>*without* the need of the cygwin dlls.
>
>So - I've been trying various things:
>
>    1) cygwin
>    2) mingw
>    3) uwin
>    4) mks toolkit
>
>all of which are unsatisfactory in some way or another. #3 and #4 in particular are 
>proprietary; and #3 and #4 both have less support in gnu tools than I care for. #3 looks
>nice, but furthermore doesn't seem to be supported in at&t anymore..
>
>However, #1 and #2 are a puzzle: why are they two separate projects? Its terribly 
>confusing; both have the same executable files created (ln and rm, for example) so 
>its hard to use one with the other; and its got to be a maintenance nightmare to 
>support separate patches for mingw and separate patches for cygwin.
>
>So - why aren't the two merged? Why isn't there a 'mingw' mode for cygwin, where 
>the ability to use the cygwin*.dll is turned off, 


What would be the point?


>and mingw executables can be compiled
>under cygwin tools? 


There can.  Use the '-mno-cygwin' flag for gcc and install the gcc-mingw
package.


>And where constructs like using shortcuts for symlinks are turned 
>off, to make projects more win32 friendly...


Ditto.  See the "nowinsymlinks" option for the CYGWIN environment variable 
at <http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using-cygwinenv.html>.  I'm not sure 
how turning this off makes Cygwin more Win32 friendly though.  Seems to me
I remember the argument for the "winsymlinks" implementation being made in 
the context of being more Win32 friendly.


>I'd think that this would be easier in the long run. If the two projects were merged..
>But then again, who am I to make such a decision.. ;-)


They already work well together.  Of course, 
<http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#PTC> if you think there's something 
else that could be done to make this better.  Cygwin and Mingw are both
open-source projects.



--
Larry Hall                              http://www.rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
838 Washington Street                   (508) 893-9889 - FAX
Holliston, MA 01746                     


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