[Mingw-users] headers suggestion

[Greg Chicares]

On 2004-11-19 11:18 AM, Jonathan Wilson wrote:

> In light of e.g. 
> http://reactos.com:8080/archives/public/ros-dev/2004-November/000658.html
> I would like to suggest the following header ideas.
> 
> Currently MingW has:
> 1.A set of headers that contain a copy of part of the platform SDK

I'm sure you already understand this, but in light of the
aggressive actions some companies have taken to defend
copyright, it bears repetition:

I think it's incorrect to say "copy" here. As far as I know,
ms copyrights its headers and MinGW never copies them. MinGW
provides different headers that are written on the basis of
public information only, and that strive to embody the same
information to the extent it's been publicly released, but
without reference to any copyrighted materials.

[Snip proposal for merging such headers from MinGW and other
projects]

> Just suggestions btw, if they are good, say so

It seems good to avoid duplication of effort.

> If they are bad, say so (and say why)

To the extent that effort has already been duplicated,
resolving any differences will be a lot of work. That's a
drawback, but it still seems like a good idea. Yet someone
would have to do the work.

An incidental benefit of duplicate effort that has produced
different expressions of the underlying idea is that this
outcome strengthens the demonstration that copyright has not
been violated. If the different expressions can be combined
without reference to copyrighted materials, then I don't
think that's a real obstacle--the historical record would
still make the point. I think Earnie was the first to point
this out.

> If there are issues with my idea, say what they are.

Previous discussions have mentioned licensing issues and
the magnitude of the effort required. I find threads
beginning with these messages:

Subject: [Mingw-users] Re: [ros-kernel] Proposed ReactOS headers and code sharing policy
From: "Eric Kohl" <ekohl at rz-online.de>
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 12:42:43 +0200

Subject: [Mingw-users] a proposal that will affect MingW-Runtime, w32api, ReactOS and WINE
From: Jonathan Wilson <jonwil at tpgi.com.au>
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 12:44:53 +0800