Comments | strdup: MinGW cross-compilation adventure.

strdup

MinGW cross-compilation adventure.

Jul 21, 2008 18:07

I just finished porting a Windows driver (actually 3) to use the MinGW build environment ( Read more... )

ddk, cross-compilation, mingw, gcc, linux

Comments 8

anonymous July 22 2008, 12:22:10 UTC

Why in particular an Open Source piece of software? Surely it should be a fear with every piece of software you use? Unless, of course, you buy a support contract... which you can do for either... so... I guess I don't really understand your point...

anonymous July 22 2008, 16:46:36 UTC

Sorry, I don't get the problem.

Aren't most drivers compiled using the DDK? Why would it be a problem to release the binaries (like everybody else?)

As for using MinGW, that's great (and much better- in a OSS way -than using the DDK) Too bad the DDK comes with lots of docs, etc

And also, Windows driver development sucks a lot compared to linux driver development...

strdup July 22 2008, 22:39:14 UTC

Hey I agree, my take from reading the DDK license was that you could build binaries of GPLed source, but if you did so you could not base your driver off the tiniest shred of the DDK's plentiful sample code (as this would get some of their code out in the wild under a license they didn't like.)

This was not the view of the lawyers. My explanations to the contrary, they were not comfortable okaying this. So yes, if it's true that there was no legal risk then using MinGW is not needed... but using MinGW removes the DDK license uncertainty from the equation entirely, which can be very important sometimes.

I don't know if the DDK license's intention was FUD, but that was the result.

macmeyers October 17 2008, 04:42:22 UTC

And again, lawyers argue that even if you win it's not worth the risk or expense, and that you should settle and pay a few thousand dollars.

Other cautions anonymous July 23 2008, 17:15:54 UTC

There are other issues here. Microsoft doesn't support drivers built with any tools other than the ones that ship in the WDK -- even including other Visual C++ versions. If you find a bug and call for support, they won't talk to you until you reproduce it with the WDK build tools.

The fact that the WDK is available for free makes me wonder why anyone would go to all of this trouble.

By the way, Visual C++ also supports variadic macros.

- Tim Roberts

Re: Other cautions anonymous July 23 2008, 18:17:27 UTC

The MS compiler doesn't grok variadic macros and other useful GCC specific features. This could be enough to justify the effort.

And this was an exciting exercise just for the sake of the art :)

--PA

Re: Other cautions anonymous July 23 2008, 19:50:34 UTC

You might want to read about MS compiler support for variadic macros at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177415.aspx

anonymous January 5 2010, 03:37:34 UTC

use a proprietary tool and get locked into the upgrade cycle. Use an open tool and you wont have that problem.