Re: [PATCH/libgui] Fix cygwin build woes

[Keith Seitz <keiths at redhat dot com>]

Christopher Faylor wrote:

> So where does cygwin stand now, Keith?  Is it time to decouple insight
> from the gdb release, make it a standalone release, and make it rely on
> X?  Is there a version of tk out there which works with on native
> windows?

I don't really know where cygwin stands. Right now, the versions of Tcl, 
Tk, Itcl, and Itk that are in sourceware are really hybrid monsters. 
There is no active cygwin maintainer for Tcl. That means native binaries 
only (which can be downloaded from ActiveState). Or someone could build 
his own binaries, based on the work that's been done on sourceware.

Itcl and Itk were pretty trivial to do, but I'm sure Tcl and Tk would be 
a bit tougher. But I don't see why it could not be done.

I have no opinion on moving Insight to X on cygwin. Insight's only 
requirement is Tcl and Tk, and it doesn't care how it gets it. :-)

I'm only attempting to decouple insight from Tcl and friends. I've tried 
ripping insight out of gdb, but it is a major, major pain: GDB abandoned 
libgdb way too early to make this possible. So insight will stay where 
it is.

My play, actually, is to abandon insight altogether, but I don't know 
when. In light of that, this has been an effort to get rid of some of 
insight's worst baggage. Licensing issues have made it possible so that 
only a Red Hat employee can easily work on insight (or at least anything 
non-trivial). So insight sits stagnant. I think it is simply time to 
move on.

I am faced with three possible decisions:

1) Keep up with insight, fixing bugs, rewriting what I can here and 
there, i.e., maintain the status quo.

2) Redesign/rewrite insight (probably move away from Tcl, too)

3) Abandon insight and devote time and energy to another project.

I know what I would like to do, but it's a huge undertaking, and I am 
not entirely sure I am either up to the challenge or have the time to 
wait for sufficient community momentum. Or worse, I commit a boatload of 
time and there is never any momentum -- just this situation insight 
faces today.

Keith