> Pretty wild statement, especially considering the existance of the Cygwin > Net Release. As far as I am aware, all packages contained in it are built > using an autoconf-based ./configure script. Check out http://cygwin.com/. > They use their own customized install agent (http://cygwin.com/setup.exe) > for binary releases, which are downloaded as Slackware-style tarballs, and > standard source tarballs that are patched when need be for source > installs.
If we are all honest with ourselves, autoconf on Windows and the whole cygwin project is really just a moderately successful attempt to port applications designed for, and written for, UNIX to Windows without having to completely rewrite the applications for Windows. When I see Norton SystemWorks or McAfee SpamKiller using cygwin, then I'll consider cygwin a viable development platform for Windows. Until then, it's just a port.
