Hi Chris,<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 5:29 PM, Chris <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:blupub@yahoo.com">blupub@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"> <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="font:inherit">Windows accounts for 90% of (consumer) operating systems in use worldwide.<br><br>It would be only fair to assume that most developers are writing software for Windows (because that's where most of the money is to be had).<br> </td></tr></tbody></table></blockquote><div><br></div><div>While you are probably right, the unfortunate fact is that the number of developers familiar with Windows, who are willing to work on Open Source software, is relatively small. Most Windows developers seem perfectly content to focus on whatever API is currently being touted as the new standard by Microsoft.</div> <div><br></div><div>I think this is too bad, as Cairo provides a nice abstraction on top of a number of technologies, which helps insulate your software from changes in vendor technologies, and allows one set of code to run on multiple platforms.</div> <div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="font:inherit"> I would also venture to guess that the more accessible a project is, the more developers it will attract.<br><br>However, in my opinion, the Cairo project is not very Windows-friendly. I have yet to successfully build for Windows - yet I have no problems compiling other libraries and I've managed to build for OS X with no problems to speak of.<br> </td></tr></tbody></table></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I agree that this build process under Windows is less convenient than having a ready-made Visual Studio solution, I think the use of the Makefile is smart because the same makefile can be used on multiple versions of VS. For example, I used to target VS 2005, but now am using VS 2008 and yet the same Makefile is valid in both cases (unlike project files, which seem to require changes with every release).</div> <div><br></div><div>Can you explain the problems you've had building? I have had no trouble building Cairo 1.8.8, which I use on the WinCairo port of WebKit.</div><div><br></div><div>I have not tried building the unstable branch, so perhaps that is where the difficulty lies?</div> <div><br></div><div>Thanks,</div><div><br></div><div>-Brent</div></div>