Re: [Mingw-cross-env-list] Re: Mingw-w64 thoughts (was OSX 10.6 workarounds)

[Tony Theodore]

2009/11/15 Tony Theodore <address@hidden>:
> 2009/11/15 Volker Grabsch <address@hidden>:
>> Tony Theodore <address@hidden> schrieb:
>>> Is there much interest in win64 applications at the moment?
>>> Your thoughts.
>>
>> While my answer is technically "Yes", there are political
>> and moral issues I'd like to discuss with the whole group
>> of Mingw-cross-env users and developers. To the point, the
>> main question is:
>>
>>    Should we really do that?
>>
>> Since the beginning of this project I had mixed opinions
>> about Windows porting. On the one hand, you increase your
>> userbase this way, and you help users who must use Windows
>> for some reason. On the other hand, you're putting much
>> work into Windows portability which essentially just helps
>> a monopolist.
>>
>> As a starting point, I ask everyone to skim through the
>> following documents before engaging in the discussion.
>> They provide views from many different directions and
>> cover almost all important arguments:
>>
>>    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/microsoft.html
>>    http://www.fefe.de/nowindows/
>>    http://catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-domination-201.html
>>    http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/faq/main.php#9
>>
>>    (Please complement this list if you feel there's an
>>     important document missing here.)
>>
>> My current answer to this moral dilemma is:
>>
>>  1) I trust you, the developers who use Mingw-cross-env, to make
>>     the right strategic decision for your projects. Mingw-cross-env
>>     ports just libraries. It's you who port the actual applications.
>>
>>  2) I remove any library whose author doesn't want it to be ported
>>     to Windows, even though the license wouldn't forbit porting:
>>     http://hg.savannah.gnu.org/hgweb/mingw-cross-env/rev/35b9dcbe9daf
>>
>>  3) At least I help _developers_ to get away from Windows. Helping
>>     _users_ to get away from Windows, if they want, is a different
>>     battle.
>>
>> However, the "World Domination 201" article suggests that this
>> might apply only to win32, not win64.
>>
>> In the past, I wasn't able to discuss that issue with a big
>> audience. But luckily, the Mingw-cross-env project grew, so
>> now I do have an great audience to ask:
>>
>> What do you think about porting software to Windows in general?
>> What do you think about supporting win64 in addition to win32?
>>
>> A penny for your thoughts.
>
> Fascinating reading, I hadn't thought about such things for a long time.

<snip my long-winded nonsense>

and I should have thought about it for a longer time before jumping in
and killing the conversation.

My apologies.

It's a larger and more nuanced issue that needs much discussion -
particularly for this project, a cross-compiler lies at the nexus of
users, developers, infrastructure, and ecosystem.

Please continue the conversation.

Sincerely,

Tony