compiler for KDE4/win32 binary packages

[Bo Thorsen]

Wednesday 11 April 2007 19:50 Christian Ehrlicher wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On win32 we support two compilers to compile kde4. Because they're
> binary incompatible, it is not possible to mix mingw and msvc libs and
> executables and we have to take care that the end-user does not get into
> this situation. Also msvc is not supported by the open-source version of
> Qt4.
> So my question is - are there any objections against the plan to release
> binaries for mingw only?
> If not - can we somewhere write this down to avoid a discussion why not
> to release msvc binaries in the future?

There are a lot of people out there with commercial Qt licenses for only 
Windows, and they all use visual studio. If there is any interest in 
attracting them to KDE work, it needs to be as simple as possible to compile 
KDE.

Personally, I much prefer msvc over mingw when I'm on Windows. And I'm getting 
increasingly annoyed with cygwin and it's incompatibilities with the rest of 
windows. By now, I pretty much only fire up cygwin to run some of the gnu 
tools in a proper shell.

Think about who needs the binary packages in the first place. Is it those 
people who are comfortable building the Unix tools, or those who are trying 
to get a bunch of libraries before they even get to the applications they 
wanted to try out and maybe help with in the first place? If the target is to 
help new people coming to the Windows port, then it's the mingw packages that 
should be dropped. But if the target is to help the current developer base, 
then you're probably correct that the msvc packages can go.

This isn't a recommendation for one way or the other, but just a reminder that 
you might hit the wrong group with this decision.

Bo.

-- 

Thorsen Consulting ApS - Qt consulting services
http://www.thorsen-consulting.dk