[Ffmpeg-devel] Re: [RFC] ffmpeg-windows mailinglist?

[Rich Felker]

On Tue, Aug 01, 2006 at 05:44:49PM +0200, Baptiste Coudurier wrote:
> Hi
> 
> Michel Bardiaux wrote:
> > [...]
> > 
> > Well I object, vociferously. Contrary to what others post, the ffmpeg
> > doc, and the web site, do *not* relegate windows to the rank of
> > second-rate platform. Only compiling ffmpeg itself with MSVC is not
> > supported.
> > 
> > Creating such a list, will have the obvious direct consequence that the
> > other lists will just flame "OT! Go to ffmpeg-wincrap!", and the less
> > direct but just as obvious consequence that mingw builds will probably
> > be broken 95% of the time. Windows *will* be hopeless as a platform for
> > ffmpeg. That is a drastic change in development policies and I dont
> > think it should be done that lightly.
> > 
> 
> What about droping windows/mingw/cygwin support ? (g)

I'm against dropping support for any platform that can be supported
within the framework of ISO C. Presently as long as you disable all
the asm and whatnot, ffmpeg _should_ work on any standards-respecting
C compiler (with minimal additional assumptions from POSIX like twos
complement and char being exactly 8 bits..).

The Windows problems fall into three categories IMO:

1. Broken compilers. Most often MSVC but gcc is sometimes broken too.

2. Not strictly broken compilers, but toolchains that give trouble
   with the i386 asm and other nonportable constructs. It's nice to
   support these if possible or work to get them fixed if they're
   broken.

3. Shared library issues and people wanting Windows-specific support
   (as opposed to basic portability). This particularly goes alongside
   using ffmpeg libraries in non-free programs.

Maybe there's another one I forgot..?

Rich