Re: Win32 binaries for GTK+ 2.4.9

[Tor Lillqvist <tml iki fi>]

Michael L Torrie writes:
 > I suppose the situation under Windows is more complicated than under
 > linux (no standard places for libraries,etc).

That's only part of the problem, and a relatively easy one to
tackle. Packages should be installation-location independent on
Windows, that can be handled at run-time. Installers can easily get
the actual paths for Common Files etc on a machine.

A more important issue is that there is no standard way of handling
package dependencies. I.e. no database telling what depends on what
version or what features of what else.

I guess one could port RPM or something to Windows, but to get all
packagers of open-source stuff to use it would be difficult. There
would be no end to the "why not use X instead" arguments. Or maybe
Windows Installer handles dependencies, that would be kinda the
official tool? But it probably has the typical COMish API that feels
so repulsive at least to a plain C guy like me. Sigh, should look into
that some day.

 > Why not provide a standard install for the majority of cases. 

I have quite enough to do fixing GTK bugs and keeping up with its
development... Providing zipfiles is the most I will do, at least
currently. I do endorse Jernej's installers (but have no time to
actually test them myself), so if you want to think of them as
"standard", go ahead.

--tml