From: Earnie B. <ea...@us...> - 2002-10-01 10:51:02
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Introduction ============ You receive this message because you are subscribed to the MinGW mailing list. This is a reminder/mini-FAQ sent once a month. If you want to unsubscribe from the mingw-users mail list you can do so at http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/mingw-users. Have your password handy (if you can't find it, you'll be offered an option to have it mailed to you). What is MinGW? ============== MinGW stands for "Minimalist GNU for Windows" and is a development package (as well as target) which allows you to compile software for "native" Windows 32-bit platforms. Please visit our website http://www.mingw.org for more information. Who is author of MinGW? How is it maintained? What is licensing? ================================================================ MinGW was created by Colin Peters and put by him into the public domain. There is no centralized force behind MinGW - it is maintained by volunteers and its development directed by the user community. MinGW uses free GNU C/C++ compiler, its core libraries and headers (Win32 import libraries and header definitions) are in public domain and it uses the vendor-supplied runtime library, so in short, you can use it to develop royalty-free software, either open- or close-sourced. For more comprehensive licensing terms, please visit http://www.mingw.org/licensing.shtml Can MinGW be used to compile GNU or OpenSource software? MSVC one? ================================================================== The MinGW runtime library adheres to ANSI C standard and offers very little POSIX compatibility. ANSI compliant and VC++ compliant software packages should be able to be compiled with little or no changes. Most GNU software (and OpenSource sofware in general) uses GNU configure-based build procedure, which requires a Bourne compliant shell, and other UNIX like utilities and are not currently available for MinGW directly. The solution is to cross- compile to MinGW from more complete environment such as Cygwin or Linux. There is however a push to supply Bourne compliant shells and UNIX utilities for MinGW in the distant future. MinGW was specifically created to allow "native" (read: MSVC supplied runtimes) source to be compiled with GCC. Most projects compile without any changes. Still, some changes to build proce- dure may be required. Tools for automated conversion of MSVC projects exist. What is MSYS and why should I use it? ===================================== MSYS stands for Minimal SYStem and is a shell environment created for use with the MinGW package. MSYS provides the ability to execute configure scripts. It also includes some *nix utilities such as the vi editor. For further details on MSYS please visit: http://www.mingw.org/msys.shtml Support ======= The main source of user information can be found at MinGW's website at http://www.mingw.org/. There, you can find general information, download and installation instructions, links to ported software, FAQ, history and news, etc. The MinGW mailing list is a place to ask questions, discuss MinGW related issues and announce availability of software. Before posting questions, please make sure that it is not covered in the comprehensive FAQ (http://www.mingw.org/mingwfaq.shtml) or already discussed in the mailing list archives which are accessible from the mailing list homepage. Reporting bugs and contributing =============================== MinGW's existence and development is impossible without community attention and contribution. Please submit bugreports via this link: http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?func=addbug&group_id=2435 (if you are registered SourceForge user, please submit when you are logged in). Submit patches for MinGW runtime/tools, corrections and additions for the web pages via http://sourceforge.net/patch/?func=addpatch&group_id=2435 . MinGW maintainers, http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/ |