Proposed SIG: Windows MinGW cross-compiler SIG

[Richard W.M. Jones]

I would like to propose a new SIG for Fedora:

  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/MinGW

The mission is to provide a MinGW-based cross-compiler and some common
libraries so that Fedora users will be able to cross-compile software
targeting Windows.  The aim will be that, just using a Fedora host and
completely free software, you will be able to produce Windows *.DLLs
and *.EXEs.

The three initial contributors, myself, Dan Berrange and Daniel
Veillard, are primarily interested in providing a libvirt client
library and some libvirt-based tools for Windows users (so that they
will be able to manage Linux systems running libvirtd remotely).
However we think that a cross-compiler could have much wider interest
in the Fedora community.

Debian provide the MinGW cross-compiler & binutils already.  We are
proposing to go further, by providing not just the cross-compiler &
binutils, but common libraries too.  For example, building libvirt
requires GnuTLS and libxml2.  In doing this we would like to leverage
the work done already by Callum Lerwick (http://www.haxxed.com/rpms/).

We believe that there is no other viable alternative to the
cross-compiler (eg. using a 'Windows secondary arch') since any
alternatives would require non-free software.

Note that this requires shipping Windows DLLs (built from free
software, NOT proprietary DLLs).  AIUI it is not possible to build
(eg.) libvirt.dll unless gnutls.dll was available already.

Many aspects of this are open for discussion - eg. naming conventions
for RPMs, paths for DLLs, name of the compiler & binutils, should we
only target i686, etc etc.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Emerging Technologies, Red Hat  http://et.redhat.com/~rjones
Read my OCaml programming blog: http://camltastic.blogspot.com/
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