On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 04:34:01PM +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 12:23:52AM +0300, Axel Thimm wrote: > > but what happens when Joe Random Packager discovers the mingw > > package and thinks this is an invitation to rebuild all of Fedora > > for Windows (where possible) and submit as a new package? Do we > > want this? If not how do we prevent this or communicate it > > properly to the packager base? > > Joe Random would certainly have a lot of time on his hands to do this. > > MinGW cross-compiles are *not* straightforward, and will require a > great deal of care and maintenance, dealing with upstream to fix newly > introduced bugs and so on. As with other Fedora packages, they only > go in if someone is willing to maintain them, and come out if no one > is willing to continue maintaining them. Hi, Joe Random's (in)finite time resources and (in)finite reviewing pals are not the problem, I'm not addressing this from a technical/organisational POV, but from principles. Just to present a real life example: I was arguing on the merits of having Fedora at schools as it comes with openoffice, gimp and so on, and a teacher took out a portable drive with portableapps.com and demostrated that he already has all of this on Windows now. And indeed the systems are now still running Windows ... So, when Joe Random starts preparing to use Fedora as a platform for building gimp or some other interesting F/LOSS bits for a proprietary system that is harming Fedora *Linux* are we really open to this? Maybe we are, I'm just posing the question. Maybe Fedora is about promoting free/open software in general whether that runs on a Linux kernel or whether that runs on *BSD, a proprieray Unix/Windows system etc. Maybe its is narrowing down to promoting fuller F/LOSS solutions including the OS, e.g. Linux and *BSD. Or it is (what I thought until now) a Linux based F/LOSS model (which doesn't preclude good relation with *BSD camps, or willing to help people on the Windows side of the earth to make the step to Linux). I think this is a rephrasing of Jeff's brigth line that he seeks to draw and wants to know what it will include and what not. So the issue is a political one, not a technical one. Supporting libvirt for running Fedora under Windows is one thing, supporting increased productivity on Windows another. Personally I would discourage the second model, or at least outsource it away from the Fedora brand. And we should decide on it now, that mingw is entering Fedora, rather than dealing with it when the Joe Randoms come in. Just to trigger some related thoughts: I wonder what would happen if someone submitted a cross-compiler and cross-built libs/tools for SCO Unix. Would we lay back and discuss it on technical points and whether there are enough maintainers etc? -- Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net -- Fedora-packaging mailing list Fedora-packaging@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-packaging
