[Discuss] Essentially all free apps will soon be available on Windows

[Corey Burger]

On 2/15/07, Alan W. Irwin <irwin at beluga.phys.uvic.ca> wrote:
> On 2007-02-15 21:18-0800 Corey Burger wrote:
>
> > On 2/15/07, Alan W. Irwin <irwin at beluga.phys.uvic.ca> wrote:
> >> I am writing this post because there is an unprecedented opportunity now
> >> for
> >> free (as in freedom) applications to be ported to windows because of
> >> CMake.
> >> Furthermore, I am all for such ports since I strongly believe that once
> >> most
> >> typical Linux apps are available on windows, the MS desktop monopoly power
> >> will finally start to weaken as a result.
> >
> > CMake is fair from the magic bullet you claim it is.
>
> Corey, I am curious about what practical experience you have had with CMake
> that has lead you to draw that conclusion.  You are the first person I have
> ever heard from that didn't like it once they tried it.

If build systems made porting easier, people would have ported to
CMake a long time ago.

>
> > The GNOME
> > project, amongst other large projects, have rejected CMake.
>
> If they have some other tool that does as good a job, that is fine.  But that
> tool is not autotools.  OTOH, if all they have is autotools, then I expect
> Gnome will soon be revisiting that decision since CMake is so much better
> even if you want to remain narrowly focussed just on the Linux platform.
>
> I should also mention the example of X.  They switched to autotools in
> recent years from something much worse. However, I predict they will migrate
> again in they are concerned at all about build times. Autotools-generated
> Makefiles invoke the libtool shell script for every compilation and link.
> That script turns out to be 8000 lines (!) which adds a substantial latency
> to every compilation and link step.

I remember the discussion, but cannot clearly find links right now.

>
> > Further,
> > the build system does not save you from cross platform coding and
> > dealing with another system.
>
> There I agree with you.  From my observations of what our Windows and Mac OS
> X testers/porters had to do for two Linux-originated projects, windows
> porting takes roughly twice the effort of Mac OS X porting, but both are
> entirely straightforward.
>
> > Further, simply building it on another
> > system is not enough. You also have to debug it on that system, a
> > massive and time consuming task.
>
> I think your negativity is a bit over the top here.  It is a straightforward
> job to port (which includes debugging, BTW) any one component of KDE to
> windows.  Also, there are huge economies of scale here. Once you learn what
> to do for one component, the remaining ones get much easier.

No, I don't think I am being negative at all here. Porting stuff to
different platforms is a major QA headache. I merely point you at the
Evolution port to see what kind of issues you run into.

Now, I don't disagree that CMake has had its praises sung. It may, in
fact, be an excellent build system that may help the whole
"portability to windows thing". To say that build system will make all
programs run on Windows is incorrect. If that was true, it would have
already been done.

Corey