Re: [ITP] mingw-libjpeg, mingw-libpng, mingw-openssl

[Charles Wilson <cygwin at cwilson dot fastmail dot fm>]

Peter Quiring wrote:
> I've created some packages for Cygwin under the mingw category.  They 
> are mingw versions of libjpeg, libpng,

Sorry, but I have to veto these (but see good news, below)

 and openssl.

I'll leave Corinna to comment on this one.

 The conventions I
> used are slightly different from cygwin standards but were neccessary to 
> compile under the mingw system. 

See, that's the problem: cygwin doesn't distribute "mingw" packages, in 
the sense of "packages that were created using the 'mingw system': mingw 
compiler and framework".  mingw-zlib and mingw-bzip2 are perhaps poor 
names, but they refer to *cygwin* generated packages that were simply 
compiled so that they do not use cygwin1.dll.

Now, after looking at your libpng package, I see that you're actually 
using *cygwin's* gcc with a -mno-cygwin flag -- which is fine.  But it's 
not, really, the "mingw system".  The "mingw system" is a different 
animal, over at http://mingw.sourceforge.net/.

There's really no reason for cygwin to distribute *any* non-cygwin apps 
or libs -- the current exceptions are: setup.exe (which obviously can't 
require cygwin) and the libraries needed to build setup.exe (mingw-zlib, 
mingw-bzip2), and one or two other apps like strace.exe and cygcheck.exe 
where it should be obvious why they can't depend on cygwin1.dll.

Finally, even if cygwin *should* distribute non-cygwin libraries, they'd 
still have to follow the cygwin packaging standard (which your source 
tarballs do not).  Plus, it really makes *no* sense for different 
versions of the same library to be maintained by different people.  *IF* 
the community thinks that it would be a good idea for cygwin to 
distribute non-cygwin versions of libpng and libjpeg, then the 
maintainer of the cygwin versions of those libs should do it.

That'd be me.

Or...it _could_ be you -- 'cause I'd be willing if the circumstances 
were right to relinquish maintainership of these packages.  However, I 
think it'd make most people nervous if I handed over maintainership of 
core graphics libraries for the cygwin platform to a relative newcomer 
(this was your first post to any cygwin list, right? I see you've been 
involved with http://www.winehq.com, but not here.)

 The source includes two scripts, one to
> compile and another to package the binary bz2 file.  I hope this would 
> be accepted since I've put a lot of work into this.  You can view the 
> packages at http://digiforce.sf.net/cygwin (all setup.hint files are 
> there too).
> Please ignore the mingw-zlib package there, it's just a modified copy of 
> the one already distributed at cygwin.com.
> These packages are some standard packages I need while programming with 
> mingw and I don't intend on adding anything else at the moment.
>
> One note about my packages is that only static libs are in the binary 
> packages since that's the idea behind mingw.

Err, nope.  libtool-1.5-mingwPORT includes a shared lib, libltdl-3.dll. 
There's nothing about mingw that requires static libraries (or else why 
did those poor schlebs work so hard to get support for building shared 
libraries (of third-party, non-libtool code) on mingw added to libtool 
in the first place?

> Thanks for considering my packages, and thanks for cygwin in general - 
> an essential tool for multi-platform developers.

Yes, yes it is.

So, here's the good news: if others think that it'd be a good idea to 
include no-cygwin versions of libpng and libjpeg, I could be persuaded 
to ITP the following myself, after knocking them into a little better shape:

http://cygutils.fruitbat.org/testing/mingw-old/mingw-libpng
http://cygutils.fruitbat.org/testing/mingw-old/mingw-jpeg

I *might* fix 'em up and put 'em in a more prominent area of the 
cygutils website with a setup.ini even if the community doesn't think 
they should be included in the core distro.

--
Chuck