[Gpg4win-devel] claws extensions

[Marcus Brinkmann]

Bernhard Reiter wrote:
> On Mittwoch, 22. Oktober 2008, Colin Leroy wrote:
>> I'd just add, technical advantages and drawbacks aside, that if
>> building installers required Windows, I wouldn't be able to do much of
>> anything
> 
> It sure is a drawback if someone cannot build stuff on GNU/Linux.
> It seems that with WiX and mono it may be possible to build MSI installers
> on GNU/Linux.

This is not correct.  You would need at least WiX, mono, and msi.dll, a
proprietary Microsoft platform DLL used by WiX.  There may be other DLL
dependencies I don't know about.  To my knowledge, WiX needs this DLL to build
the installer.

But note that last time I checked, mono did not run WiX.

This issue is, IMO, not about "building stuff on GNU/Linux", but about freedom
and control over the software toolchain.  This means that the software stack
must be freely licensed, but in practice it also should be approachable.  A
different way to say the same thing: Software freedom is not just a check-box
requirement.  Sustainable solutions require a functioning ecosystem.  In the
free software world, NSIS+mingw32 is such an ecosystem, while mono+wix would not
be, even if it would work technically.  In particular, to my knowledge WiX is
not part of any of  GNU/Linux distribution.

Thanks,
Marcus