1 Minimalist GNU-Win32 Readme
4 Colin Peters <colin@bird.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp>
9 Mingw32 is short for the Minimalist GNU-Win32 package, and it is a
10 package which allows you to use GCC (as supplied by Cygnus in their GNU-
11 Win32 or Cygwin32 package) the GNU compiler, on Win32 platforms like
12 Windows 95 or NT, to compile "native" programs.
14 In this case "native" means programs which don't require extra DLLs like
15 the cygwin DLL. Mingw32 programs use CRTDLL.DLL to provide their C run
16 time library functions, and CRTDLL.DLL is supplied with all current
17 Win32 platforms. Thus the programs are light weight and easy to
18 distribute, they also do not automatically fall under the GNU Public
19 License as programs written with the GPL version of Cygwin32 do.
24 Mingw32 version 0.1.3 is distributed in two files, mingw32_013.tar.gz
25 and mingsrc013.tar.gz. The first file contains the following components:
27 - Import libraries for building programs which use the
28 CRTDLL.DLL C run time library supplied with Win32 platforms.
30 - crt0.o and dllcrt0.o, two "startup code" object files that
31 perform program or DLL initialization without using
32 CRTDLL.DLL (instead of CYGWIN.DLL).
34 - specs, a configuration file for GCC which defines appropriate
35 options for creating executables which use the CRTDLL.DLL C
38 - Include files with appropriate type and macro definitions,
39 and function prototypes for use with CRTDLL.DLL.
41 The source distribution (mingsrc013.tar.gz) contains the .def files and
42 source files used to create the various import libraries and object
43 files in the above list.
48 Unlike some previous releases of Mingw32 the current version defaults to
49 building console applications, the same way that GCC normally does when
50 installed from the Cygnus distribution. The Mingw32 specs file also
51 introduces two command line arguments to GCC which can be used to
52 conveniently specify a console or GUI type build. When building console
53 programs "-console" can be used on the GCC command line, while GUI
54 programs can be built by specifying "-windows" (I tried defining -gui,
55 and it works, but produces an annoying warning about -gui not being
56 supported (?)). For example:
58 gcc -o hellogui.exe hellogui.c -luser32 -windows
60 Although using different "crt0" files for GUI and console applications
61 has been suggested I have left the system more-or-less as it was in
62 0.1.1: crt0 sets up for and calls main, and if you don't supply a main
63 there is one in libmingw32.a, which in turn calls WinMain (actually
64 WinMain@16). This allows either main or WinMain entry points in console
65 or GUI applications, but if you don't supply main or WinMain, or don't
66 prototype WinMain as __stdcall__ you will get a linker error about an
67 "unresolved reference to WinMain@16." This is unfortunately cryptic, but
68 otherwise the system works quite well.
70 An important note if you want to rebuild from the sources of Mingw32 or
71 otherwise use the special version of Jam made for Mingw32: you need to
72 have a version of "rm", the UNIX equivalent of del, somewhere in your
73 path to use the current Jambase (which is built into the Jam
74 executable). The version that comes with the Cygnus files is perfectly
78 0.3 Fixes and Improvements
80 Numerous small bug fixes have been made in the header files.
82 Floating point initialization, originally added in version 0.1.2, has
83 been modified to use the _fpreset function from CRTDLL.DLL instead of
84 cryptic and possibly less portable assembly code.
86 A new DLL-building option has been added to the specs file so that the
87 following link line will appropriately link in dllcrt0.o instead of the
88 normal crt0.o, and set the entry point correctly:
90 gcc -dll -o dll.dll dll.o -Wl,dll.exp
92 A bug that would cause the wrong include files to be included in dual
93 installations of Cygwin32 and Mingw32 has been fixed (I hope) in the
96 Alongside this release is a new release of Jam specially built for use
97 with Mingw32. It should be available from the same place you got this
98 file. This release of Jam includes rules for building DLLs, including
99 resources in your executables and creating import libraries. I also
100 intend to distribute a small set of example files showing how to do all
101 of these things with Mingw32 and Jam.
103 In the "coming soon" category I have a version of the GNU Standard C++
104 library ported to Mingw32. This means you can use iostreams, complex
105 numbers and all those neat STL (Standard Template Library) things
106 without needing the Cygwin DLL. I hope to put this port up for
107 downloading soon (along with the source of course).
113 1.1 Download and Unpack GNU-Win32 Beta 17.1
115 Because of the enormous size of the beta 17.1 release from Cygnus this
116 process will require about 85 MB or more of free disk space. The first
117 step, after downloading the Mingw32 package, is to download the GCC
118 binary distribution, all.tar.gz, from Cygnus (or a mirror), which is
119 about 10 MB. (Of course, if you just want the Cygwin32 install and are
120 not actually interested in adding on Mingw32 you don't need the Mingw32
123 Just to be safe, and if you have the 10 MB to spare, you should probably
124 copy the all.tar.gz file to a reasonably safe place at this point. This
125 will save you from the pain of downloading it again if something goes
128 To complete this step you need a gzip program (or just gunzip) and a tar
129 program. You can use the ones supplied by Cygnus (although some people
130 seem to have trouble with them, especially if you try to use pipes) or
131 one of the other ports available from your favorite freeware/shareware
134 First un-gzip the file with a command line like:
139 This will produce a all.tar file and erase the all.tar.gz file (there
140 are options for gzip if you want to keep the original around). The tar
143 Make a directory for the cygnus stuff, such as C:\cygnus for example.
144 Move the tar file there (e.g. move \tmp\all.tar \cygnus). Don
\92t copy it
145 unless you like waiting and wasting 40 MB of disk space.
147 Unpack the tar file into your new directory with a command line like:
150 Run from the new directory (now containing the tar file). This is the
151 step where disk space usage reaches its peak, since the tar extraction
152 does not delete the all.tar file, and the amount of space taken by the
153 extracted files plus the tar file itself is well in excess of 80 MB
154 (mainly because, on my system at least, the files which are symbolic
155 links in the tar archive are copied as they are expanded onto the FAT
156 filesystem, so for example, a symbolic link to cygwin.dll, a 3 MB file,
157 takes an extra 3 MB, since the file is simply duplicated in the new
158 location). I could not actually do this on my laptop and had to extract
159 the tar file from a mounted network drive!
161 NOTE: From here on I will refer to files as if you had installed in
162 C:\cygnus. If you installed somewhere else then just replace C:\cygnus
163 with the appropriate path wherever it occurs.
168 This step is not 100% necessary, but it helps at this point to determine
169 if you
\92ve gotten this far without any major problems. Also, if you
170 intend to use both Cygwin32 and Mingw32 you will have to do some of
171 these steps eventually.
173 GCC and the other programs in the compiler suite all require cygwin.dll
174 to run. There are two copies of this file: one in C:\cygnus\H-i386-
175 cygwin32\bin (this might be a symbolic link), and one in C:\cygnus\H-
176 i386-cygwin32\i386-cygwin32\lib (the original). Since this DLL is
177 required by all Cygwin32 programs it makes sense to put one copy of it
178 in your C:\Windows\System directory (or equivalent) and remove the extra
179 copies. This will also save you headaches when the next release comes
180 along and you have to make sure that everything is using the latest
183 After doing that run the cygwin32.bat batch file included with this
184 distribution, or otherwise perform the following settings:
186 PATH=%PATH%;C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\bin
187 SET GCC_EXEC_PREFIX=C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-lib\i386-
188 cygwin32\cygnus-2.7.2-961023
189 SET LIBRARY_PATH=/cygnus/H-i386-cygwin32/lib/gcc-lib/i386-
190 cygwin32/cygnus-2.7.2-961023:/cygnus/H-i386-cygwin32/i386-
191 cygwin32/lib:/cygnus/H-i386-cygwin32/lib
192 SET C_INCLUDE_PATH=/cygnus/H-i386-cygwin32/lib/gcc-lib/i386-
193 cygwin32/cygnus-2.7.2-961023/include:/cygnus/H-i386-
194 cygwin32/i386-cygwin32/include:/cygnus/include
195 SET CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=%C_INCLUDE_PATH%
197 NOTE: You may need to increase the amount of environment space available
198 at the command prompt to get these extremely long environment variables
199 set. You can do this under Windows 95 by modifying the properties of the
200 command prompt shortcut you use under the "Program" tab, adding a
201 /e:#### argument to the command line COMMAND.COM, where #### is the
202 number of bytes to set aside for the environment.
204 NOTE: Under Windows 95 changes made in your autoexec.bat file will not
205 show up in new DOS boxes unless you reboot your machine.
207 Now write and compile a small test hello world program like this:
214 printf ("Hello, world!\n");
218 Then compile it like this (assuming your file is called hello.c):
220 gcc -o hello.exe hello.c
222 The compile should proceed without problems and you should be able to
223 run the hello program at the end. It should print "Hello, world!"
224 (without the quotes) to the console and then return to the command
227 If you wanted a full Cygwin32 install you now have it. With this setup
228 (say, by adding those lines above to your autoexec.bat or global
229 settings) you can port a great deal of UNIX code to run under Win32
230 systems. No more steps are necessary.
232 If you are a minimalist or otherwise want to save disk space you should
233 continue from here. Also if you intend to use the Minimalist GNU-Win32
234 files to compile programs which don't use the Cygwin32 API you will need
235 to do some of the things mentioned below.
237 If the compile didn't work for some reason check very carefully that you
238 followed the instructions above correctly and then check whether one or
239 more of the files in the download got corrupted. If neither of these
240 seems to be the case then your system is not behaving like my system.
241 Try looking at the troubleshooting section later in this file, and if
242 none of that helps then you can email me (colin@bird.fu.is.saga-
243 u.ac.jp), though I can't promise I'll be a lot of help.
246 1.3 Separating the Win32 API Files
248 Mingw32 and Cygwin32 share the same set of Win32 API include files and
249 import libraries as included in the GCC distribution from Cygnus. In
250 order to use the Win32 API with a dual setup or with Mingw32 alone you
251 will have to separate those files from the bulk of the Cygwin32 API
254 Make a new directory to serve as the root for the Win32 API files. I put
255 mine under C:\cygnus and called it win32, but you can put it where you
256 like and just replace later references to C:\cygnus\win32 with your own
259 Move the following from C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\i386-cygwin32\include
260 to a new C:\cygnus\win32\include directory:
262 windows.h, winadvapi.h, winbase.h, wincon.h, windef.h, windowsx.h,
263 winerror.h, wingdi.h, winkernel.h, winnt.h, wintypes.h, winuser.h,
264 winversion.h, commdlg.h, ddeml.h and the Windows32 sub-directory and all
267 Move the following files from C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\i386-
268 cygwin32\lib to a new C:\cygnus\win32\lib directory:
270 libadvapi32.a, libcomctl32.a, libcomdlg32.a, libctl3d32.a, libgdi32.a,
271 libglaux.a, libglu32.a, libimm32.a, libkernel32.a, liblz32.a,
272 libmapi32.a, libmfcuia32.a, libmgmtapi.a, libmpr.a, libmsacm32.a,
273 libnddeapi.a, libnetapi32.a, libodbc32.a, libodbccp32.a, libole32.a,
274 liboleaut32.a, liboledlg.a, libolepro32.a, libopengl32.a, libpenwin32.a,
275 libpkpd32.a, librasapi32.a, librpcdce4.a, librpcndr.a, librpcns4.a,
276 librpcrt4.a, libscrnsave.a, libshell32.a, libsnmp.a, libsvrapi.a,
277 libtapi32.a, libth32.a, libthunk32.a, liburl.a libuser32.a, libvdmdbg.a,
278 libversion.a, libvfw32.a, libwin32spl.a, libwinmm.a, libwinserve.a,
279 libwinspool.a, libwinstrm.a, libwow32.a, libwsock32.a, libwst.a.
281 That list is quite excessive for most basic Windows programming, which
282 will only require kernel32, user32, gdi32, shell32 and possibly a couple
283 of others like the common control and dialog libraries or advapi32. You
284 may not need the ODBC support, or OLE, or Pen Windows, TAPI and on and
285 on. Still, if you have the space and intend to use the Win32 API you
286 might as well keep the ones you
\92re not sure you
\92ll ever use around.
288 The lists above can also act as lists of files you can safely delete if
289 you are never going to use the Win32 API in your programs except that
290 libkernel32.a is still required even if you don
\92t use the Win32 API
291 yourself. Note that this means that libkernel32.a must be on the library
292 path as well, even if you don
\92t use the Win32 API. (Actually this
293 appears to be an artifact of the specs file supplied with Cygwin32. If
294 you like, and feel up to it, you can play around with the specs file and
295 remove the reference to kernel32.)
297 Here are the variable settings you need to make to allow GCC to find the
298 Win32 API files in their new positions:
300 SET LIBRARY_PATH=%LIBRARY_PATH%:/cygnus/win32/lib
301 SET C_INCLUDE_PATH=%C_INCLUDE_PATH%:/cygnus/win32/include
302 SET CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=%CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH%:/cygnus/win32/include
304 The file win32-api.bat performs these settings. Run it after you run
305 cygwin32.bat (or mingw32.bat below).
307 At this point you should be able to compile programs that use the Win32
308 API, just as you could before. You might want to do a simple test
309 compile to find out, for example this code:
314 WinMain (HINSTANCE hInst, HINSTANCE hPrev, LPSTR lpCmd, int nShow)
316 MessageBox (NULL, "Test message", "Test", MB_OK);
320 Should compile with the following command line:
321 gcc -o test.exe test.c -lkernel32 -luser32 -Wl,--subsystem,windows
323 It will produce a warning at link time about not finding
324 _WinMainCRTStartup, but this is harmless.
326 If you have trouble check the troubleshooting section later in this
332 The file C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-lib\i386-cygwin32\cygnus-
333 2.7.2-961023\specs includes a set of options and defaults for GCC,
334 including such things as which libraries are automatically linked into
335 executables and such. A different specs file is required depending on
336 whether you use Cygwin32 or Mingw32.
338 To avoid GCC accidentally using the wrong specs file move specs to
339 C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\i386-cygwin32\lib.
341 You can verify what specs file is being used by attempting a compile
342 with the -v option to gcc. Note that if no specs file is mentioned the
343 compiler will default to Cygwin32 behavior.
346 1.5 The Mingw32 Files
348 Now we can install the Mingw32 files and start making programs which
349 don
\92t use cygwin.dll or the Cygwin32 API. I install my copy under a
350 separate directory called C:\mingw32, but you could put them wherever
351 you like (e.g. C:\cygnus\mingw32). Again simply replace references to
352 C:\mingw32 with the directory where you perform your installation.
354 After making the install directory copy mingw32_012.tgz to that
355 directory and run a command like this:
356 gunzip -d mingw32_012.tgz
358 in that directory, followed by:
359 tar xvf mingw32_012.tar
361 This will unpack the required files. Then you can use the following
362 environment variable settings (as included in mingw32.bat) to setup for
363 compiles using Mingw32:
365 PATH=%PATH%;C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\bin
366 SET GCC_EXEC_PREFIX=C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-lib\i386-
367 cygwin32\cygnus-2.7.2-961023\
368 SET LIBRARY_PATH=/mingw32/lib
369 SET C_INCLUDE_PATH=/mingw32/include:/mingw32/include/nonansi
370 SET CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=%C_INCLUDE_PATH%
372 The mingw32.bat file can be used the same way as the cygwin32.bat file.
373 Depending on which one you run you will be able to do Mingw32 compiles
374 or Cygwin32 compiles. Note that whichever one you use you must follow it
375 with an invocation of win32-api.bat so that libkernel32.a will be in the
378 Setup is now complete, you have complete working Mingw32 and Cygwin32
379 compiles available along with the bash shell, tons of UNIX-like
382 If you had trouble with any of the steps above then the next section is
387 2. Troubleshooting Setup Problems
389 If you ran into trouble at any stage in the section 1 here are a few
390 general guidelines as well as some solutions to common problems.
392 2.1 Winzip, gunzip or tar Complains of Errors
394 Winzip may complain that it could not create a file with garbage
395 characters in it's name. Gunzip, gzip or tar may complain about
396 formatting errors. Usually this means that the downloaded file is
397 corrupted. As of this writing this problem was most commonly caused when
398 downloading the files from Geocities using Netscape Navigator for
399 Windows 95 or NT. A combination of a badly set MIME type at Geocities
400 and a bug in Netscape will corrupt files saved with "Save Link As" (and
401 clicking on the links would display the files as garbage text). At this
402 time the only solutions are to use another browser (IE, or Netscape for
403 UNIX or Apple systems) or to download from the Japanese mirror
404 (http://www.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp/~colin/gcc.html). Hopefully Geocities
405 will eventually fix their problem.
408 2.2 Compile and Link Time Problems: General Steps
410 First, evaluate that your environment variables are what you expect them
411 to be by running the SET command with no arguments (if you are using the
412 bash shell then the output of env might also be illuminating). Do this
413 immediately before you attempt a compile in the same window as the
416 Secondly include the '-v' option on the gcc command line. This will give
417 you far more information on what happens during the compile, especially
418 important are which specs file is being used and what include file
419 directories are being read, as well as the arguments to cpp and ld.
421 If you send me email about a problem the output of these two general
422 steps will be very helpful in making a diagnosis.
425 2.3 Cannot exec 'cpp'
427 On compiling you get an error message like this:
429 GCC.EXE: installation problem, cannot exec `cpp': No such file
431 GCC.EXE: Internal compiler error: program cpp got fatal signal 127
433 This means more or less what it says. The program cpp is the C
434 preprocessor (it strips comments and interprets all those lines
435 beginning in '#') and running it is the first step in compiling a C or
436 C++ program. The problem here is that GCC.EXE cannot find CPP.EXE.
437 Normally CPP.EXE is in the directory C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-
438 lib\i386-cygwin32\cygnus-2.7.2-961023\. If the file is there then
439 probably the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX environment variable is not correctly set.
442 2.4 Can't Find Include Files
444 You get an error like this:
446 hello.c:2: No include path in which to find stdio.h
448 This, again, means what it says (more or less). The compiler cannot find
449 the file stdio.h which is #included in the source file hello.c at line
450 2. Of course the particular file names may differ in your case. If this
451 is not simply a case of including a really non-existent file or
452 misspelling the file name then probably your C_INCLUDE_PATH or
453 CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH environment variable is wrong. (If not, see "But the
454 environment variables are right" below.)
457 2.5 Can't Find Libraries
459 At link time you get an error like this:
461 ld: cannot open -lkernel32: No such file or directory
463 This one is a bit cryptic, mainly because the name of the file that
464 can't be opened is not "-lkernel32" but "libkernel32.a". "-lname" is the
465 ld command line syntax for linking the library named "libname.a". So
466 basically this error is saying it can't find libkernel32.a (or whatever
467 library matches the error you got). If you weren't trying to manually
468 link in a library that doesn't exist or was misspelled (by accidentally
469 including the 'lib' or '.a' on the command line for example) then
470 probably your LIBRARY_PATH environment variable is wrong. (If not, see
471 "But the environment variables are right" below.)
474 2.6 But the Environment Variables are Right!
476 You had one of the problems with not finding include files or libraries
477 but the environment variables all seem to be pointing at the right
478 places and the files are all there.
480 If you installed on a drive other than C: drive this may be your
481 problem. The Cygwin DLL, and thus all the basic compiler tools,
482 automatically map C: drive to (UNIX-style) '/'. Thus /cygnus is actually
483 C:\cygnus. There are a few ways to fix this (without reinstalling on C:
486 - Map your actual install directory to /cygnus using mount
487 (mount.exe is included with the Cygnus distribution). Simply
488 type "mount D:\mydir /cygnus" (assuming you installed in the
489 directory \mydir on D: drive). Similar tricks can be used for
490 other directories which you may have installed on other drives.
492 - Change the mount of C: to / to the actual install drive. This is
493 possible by using the registry editor (regedit) included with
494 Windows. Start the editor and go to the key (or folder) "My
495 Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cygnus Support\CYGWIN.DLL
496 setup\b15.0\mounts". Under this key there are several numbered
497 keys. One of them will have the variables "native" set to "c:" and
498 "unix" set to "/". Change the value of "native" to whatever drive
499 you did your install on and everything should be fixed. NOTE: You
500 should probably do this after a fresh boot with no Cygnus based
504 2.7 Unresolved References to _impure_ptr and/or _ctype_ etc.
506 At link time your code produces unresolved references to _impure_ptr,
507 _ctype_ and/or _errno, among others.
509 This is the result of using the Cygwin header files but linking against
510 the Mingw32 libraries. I have hopefully managed to fix the bug that used
511 to cause this problem on any dual installation, but perhaps I haven't.
512 To check you can run gcc with the -v option and see if the list of
513 directories searched for include files contains any include directories
514 with Cygwin headers in them. If everything is working correctly you
515 should only see the directories on your C_INCLUDE_PATH in this list.
517 If you have this problem then you may have to modify the Mingw32 specs
518 file, specifically the part that says:
521 %{posix:-D_POSIX_SOURCE} -iprefix /mingw32/include/
523 These are options that get passed to the C preprocessor by gcc. Consult
524 the documentation for cpp and try options other than -iprefix. You may
525 have to use -nostdinc and/or -nostdinc++ plus -I options to get the
529 2.8 My Program Doesn't Print Any Output OR My Windows Program Creates
532 Your console application runs, but doesn't print any output, or your GUI
533 application runs fine, but always creates an extra console window when
534 run from Explorer or by double clicking on an icon.
536 These are basically two sides of the same coin. You have created a GUI
537 (or console) application when you meant to create a console (or GUI)
538 application. By default gcc creates console applications. If you make a
539 windows GUI application with a WinMain and all that you will still get a
540 console application if you don't tell gcc what to do at link time. The
541 relevant options are "-windows" "-Wl,--subsystem,windows" or "-Wl,--
542 subsystem,console". The first two, if used on a gcc link line, will
543 create a proper GUI application. The last will make sure you are making
544 a console application.
548 3. Optimizing and Reducing Disk Space Usage
550 There are still vast amounts of disk space used by the Cygwin32
551 installation on your hard-drive, and much of it can be removed while
552 still maintaining a fully functional compiler system. The following
553 sections point out which files you actually need for certain tasks, so
554 that you won
\92t delete them.
559 For C only, Mingw32 compiles which don
\92t use the Win32 API, and if you
560 don
\92t want to produce DLLs or do debugging with any of the GNU tools the
561 list of files required is as follows:
563 In C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\bin:
564 ar.exe, as.exe, gcc.exe, ld.exe
566 In C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-lib\i386-cygwin32\cygnus-2.7.2-
568 cc1.exe, cpp.exe, libgcc.a
570 In C:\cygnus\win32\lib:
573 Plus all the files in C:\mingw32\lib and C:\mingw32\include and their
579 To add C++ Support to the above the following extra files are required:
581 In C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-lib\i386-cygwin32\cygnus-2.7.2-
585 Note that this does not include support for the standard C++ libraries
586 (only the C run time libraries) or for iostreams. That support is still
587 only available with the Cygwin32 API.
590 3.3 Extra Utilities of Extreme Usefulness
592 Even if you do not use the bash shell or UNIX utilities in general some
593 of the utilities in C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\bin are extremely useful
594 for debugging and probably shouldn
\92t be deleted if you intend to do any
595 actual programming using the system.
598 dlltool.exe, gdb.exe, nm.exe, and strip.exe.
603 Jam is a make replacement program that I use pretty much exclusively,
604 which is why you don't find any Makefile, makefile, makefile.mk or all
605 that in the stuff that I do. You do find jamfiles and the occaisional
606 mk.bat file. The executable of Jam is only 80 KB and the program is
607 incredibly useful, so I would encourage you do download the special
608 Mingw32 version and check it out. The Mingw32 version has built in rules
609 for adding resources, building DLLs and import libraries as well as
610 normal C and C++ files. The source code is, of course, freely available.
612 The actual point of this section though, is to point out that to use Jam
613 you need not only the Jam executable but also rm.exe from the Cygwin
614 distribution. You also might want to download rcl.exe and res2coff.exe
615 as these are the helper programs Jam expects to use for resource script
621 All of the code in the Mingw32 package is available as public domain
622 source. You may use and modify the code as you like. Of course I
623 encourage you to write software which is free, either public domain or
624 under the GNU Public License for example, but that is up to you. Linking
625 with the libraries included with Mingw32 similarly does not impose any
626 licensing restrictions on your code or binaries.
628 The library libgcc.a, which is linked into all code produced with GCC,
629 is under a special version of the LGPL (as far as I know, you should
630 check for yourself) which allows the distribution of programs which are
631 simply linked with unmodified versions of libgcc.a with no licensing
634 Thus, using Mingw32, you should be able to produce code with no
635 licensing restrictions imposed by use of the compiler or libraries. The
636 Cygwin32 API, and the GNU libraries are another matter and you should
637 consult their license agreements.
639 Again I must stress that I am not a lawyer and the above statements only
640 reflect my personal understanding of the situation. You would be well
641 advised to consult the actual text of the appropriate copyright notices
642 and license agreements if you have any concerns.
647 First of all, the Mingw32 code is supplied AS IS with NO WARRANTY either
650 There is also no support staff standing by to take your calls. There
651 are, however, a few people, including myself, using Mingw32 who might be
652 able to help you. If you have problems you can email me at
653 colin@bird.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp and I will try to get back to you. No
654 guarantees, but I will do my best.
657 6. Suggestions and Contributions
659 If you find a bug in the Mingw32 files themselves then feel free to
660 report it, or even better to supply a fix, by emailing me at
661 colin@bird.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp. Any fixes I receive will probably go into
662 the next release, and if they seem high-priority I may put the patched
663 files on my web page until I can make a complete release. Please note
664 that if you supply code it must be in the public domain or I cannot
665 include it in Mingw32. Please attach an appropriate legal message to the
666 code or otherwise make sure that there are no copyright issues. Of
667 course if you just suggest a possible method for solving a problem or
668 point out a bug then there should be no need for all that.
670 Note that the Win32 API header files are not actually part of the
671 Mingw32 package. I know there are many bugs and omissions, and I try to
672 keep informed about them, so I do appreciate mail pointing them out.
673 However I can
\92t fix these problems at the source. You should send email
674 to Scott Christley (the author of the GPL windows32-api) or possibly to
675 Cygnus. Sending email to me might get me to mention it on my homepage or
676 fix it in my personal copy of the header files, but that
\92s about it
679 Aside from bug reports, suggestions for improvements, testing of the
680 header files and otherwise praise or criticism is all welcome in my
684 Colin Peters (colin@bird.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp)