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Re: No respect for Windows?

From: Robert Dailey <rcdailey_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:32:51 -0500

On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 12:01 PM, David Weintraub <qazwart_at_gmail.com> wrote:

> Since Windows represents about 90% of the desktops (and Windows is
> probably a majority of the desktops even in Open Source shops), it is
> extremely important for any Open Source project to have a Windows
> version. There maybe some philosophical differences between people who
> develop for Open Source and Microsoft, but the best way to kill an
> Open Source project is to keep it off of Windows. So, why does it
> sometimes take a bit longer for official Windows versions of Open
> Source projects like Subversion?
>
> Most Linux and Unix distributors scurry to build their own version of
> open source projects like Subversion for their users while Microsoft
> itself is usually not interested. So, if RedHat ports of Subversion
> appear before Windows versions, it could be because Redhat did the
> work necessary to get the package there.
>
> There are other issues involved making Windows ports so difficult. On
> almost any Linux or Unix distribution, I can pretty much download the
> source and compile it without any problems because most Unix and Linux
> distributions are loaded with the standard Open Source dependencies.
> This is even true with Mac OS X as long as Fink is installed.
>
> Windows, on the other hand, doesn't even include a standard C compiler
> let alone most of the standard Open Source dependencies that
> Subversion uses. It isn't impossible to get Windows to compile the
> source, but it does take quite a bit of setup. You have to first get
> all the dependencies -- some of which don't come with any compiled
> version of the program. Then, you have to get the GCC compiler.
>
> And, even once you do get a build going, you then have to create a
> standard Windows Installation package either using InstallShield or
> Microsoft's MSI -- neither of which are free.
>
> It isn't impossible to do all of that, but if you want to build
> Subversion from source on Windows, you really need to setup a Windows
> machine with all the bells and whistles needed for building open
> source software. You might want to take a look at MingW
> <http://www.mingw.org/> or the OSS Win project
> <http://osswin.sourceforge.net/>.

That's exactly the problem I was trying to solve myself, however I got to
thinking: Why waste the effort? I'm sure hundreds of people have already
gone through the effort to set all of this up on windows. Why don't they
release a visual studio version of the source distribution so that I can 1)
Download and 2) Compile. The only reason why it's so difficult on windows is
because no one has made the effort to make it easy as far as I know. Linux
is easy right now because all of the hard work has already been done by
someone else (Such as the distributor of that particular version of Linux).
Microsoft won't do it obviously, so someone could simply create a ZIP file
with all of the necessary components so that all I have to do is Download &
Compile.
Received on 2008-07-30 21:33:18 CEST

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