[gtk-win32] Let's start some discussion.

["Alberto Ruiz" <aruiz gnome org>]

Hi there,
first, I must apologize for the delay on this mail, It's been pretty busy week (due to Christmas presents and so). I would ask for everyone in this list to reply this mail at least for introducing himself.

The main reason for creating this list is to concentrate all the efforts towards Gtk/GNOME Win32 apps packaging and distribution. I would like to summarize some of the issues that should be discussed.

* Right now, the official Gtk+ win32 binaries (and others GNOME bits) are distributed using a set of .zip files from GNOME's FTP site. I don't know the reasons for doing so (tor, could you explain this point please?). However, most people are using ivan's .exe files from 
gladewin32.sf.net (which is not pointed anywhere on the gnome/gtk site).

* There is no "official" or "blessed" way to distribute Gtk+ and its bindings within win32 applications, each app developer is doing it's own way, here we have an example of the two main approaches:
  - Mono guys are using an installer with everything inside it, Gtk, Glade. In the windows' software manager, it only appears as one and only package.
  - Gaim guys are embedding the ivan's installer inside the gaim's one, they have installers without it also.

Right now, for a newbie, there is no clear way on how to proceed while distributing the libraries, even the installation of the bindings for development purposes are quite hard on most languages (Python, C++, Perl, Ruby...). I think that we need to somehow centralize the information and resources where possible from the main websites (
gtk.org, gnome.org, pygtk...) and try to simplify the way people gets the toolchains to develop in their language. There is a lot of duplicate efforts right now.

So, our main goals could be:
  * Find consensus on how gtk should be distributed for both development or within third party applications.
  * Avoid duplicate efforts and try to centralize the resources of the most important binding binaries (c++, python etc..).


Thank you very much for your attention,
let's make gtk+ on windows rock! :)
-- 
Un saludo,
Alberto Ruiz