Experimental UNICODE-only MinGW Build]

[Mohan Embar]

Hi João,

>I have just read your patch. It is beautiful, congratulations!
>I hope it runs as well as it looks in all the situations proposed!

Thanks João. I'm still doing some serious testing.

>In other words: I think that you have a master piece lacking the final 
>touch. :-)
>This touch would include:
>1- the win32 unicode configure option.
>2- MultiByteToWideChar()/WideCharToMultiByte() support when UNICODE is 
>unset (at least I have not found it in your patch).

I have one doubt about this. Although you saw that I've left the door
open to do this, my reservation would be that we'd essentially have
another build configuration to test and maintain.

>But if you really want to force the end of the support for Win9X over
>everybody else, and reduce it to UNICOWS (or even to no support at all)....

For the record, I definitely don't want to end support for Win9X. People
distributing a gcj-built application would simply need to find and distribute
unicows.dll alongside their application and the problem is solved. At 245K,
the DLL seems quite small and harmless.

>I also do not know if the libunicows static portion that you are willing 
>to link with libjava has the GPL "special exception". But I am sure that 
>someone will address this licensing issue.

Actually, we're not so much linking to libjava as much as linking the
target executable with libunicows.a. This is technically the same as linking
to the MinGW runtime libraries. According to the website, libunicows is "released
"under the Open Source MIT license (this permits you to link the library into your
executable without any restrictions)."

>Anyway. I like your patch very much and would never oppose to it (even 
>if my single opinion would matter for the decision).

I am still sensing some hesitation about the unicows.dll option which I'd
like to resolve with you.

>I have already written too much about this subject. I apologize to all 
>the members of the mailing list...

I personally have found your feedback and input helpful.

-- Mohan
http://www.thisiscool.com/
http://www.animalsong.org/