Maybe I phrased the question too naively given this response. I was looking
for something a little more technically oriented given the make scripts go
out of their way to stop a cygwin build. But thanks.
I'll give this some thought and see what I come up with. The linux ISO is a
nice approach.
larrie.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Al Davis"
To: <geda-dev@seul.org>
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 2:50 PM
Subject: Re: gEDA: building under cygwin
On Friday 03 February 2006 14:08, Larrie Carr wrote:
As I dig through the archives, I see this topic coming up
from time to time. However, I don't understand the history
behind why cygwin is not supported using the standard build
scripts.
I think I can explain.
Most of the developers choose one system to do most of the work
in. In Free software circles, it is usually a Free operating
system, usually either Linux or BSD. There are several
distributions of each, that have minor style differences. None
of us actually test on all of the systems that the software
works on. There are too many.
The official distribution is in source form, so you must compile
it to install it. I know mine works on my system. Most Linux
and BSD variants are similar enough that I have high confidence
there too. The farther away it gets, the lower the confidence
is.
We freely use other free software, such as gtk, guile, python,
and others. On most of our systems, either we already have it
or it is trivial to install. If not, you might need to install
more stuff. We are strict about the requirement that
everything required is also free.
The packages for particular distributions are done by someone
else other than the people developing the software. These
packages are ready to install. They do not contain all of the
needed libraries, but instead contain information needed to
find them, in such a way that the installer will automatically
find and install the needed extras. Some of them are
maintained by people here on this list. One individual usually
maintains several applications, perhaps all of gEDA and the
related tools, on a single platform. Some of the packages are
available with the official OS distribution. Some are
available from other sites. Please note again, they are done
by someone else other than the people who created the software.
Maintaining these packages is a ongoing effort. Every time the
source package is updated, the binary package must also be
updated. Some distributions just do the stable releases. Some
track the development snapshots. Some do both.
So, when you ask about a platform that isn't officially
supported, we are waiting for someone to step up and do it.
This statement applies to a native MS-Windows port too. We
don't deliberately block it. We are just waiting for someone
to take on the project.
