Bug 46614

Summary: mingw-w64 compiler required, to compile a *windows* dll, for the ARM port of libreoffice!
Product: LibreOffice Reporter: Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <luke.leighton>
Component: LibreOfficeAssignee: Not Assigned <libreoffice-bugs>
Status: RESOLVED NOTABUG    
Severity: normal CC: michael.stahl
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: Other   
OS: All   
Whiteboard:
Crash report or crash signature: Regression By:

Description Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 2012-02-25 05:42:45 UTC 
i'm sorry, i find this to be absolutely hilarious.

the debian team are presently in the process of compiling libreoffice, for ARM.

apparently, what is needed is the x86 "Minimalist GNU *WINDOWS*, 64-bit" cross-compiler, compiled up on the ARM architecture, to create x86 code that will *not* even run on the ARM architecture, in a futile attempt to have an ARM-compiled java runtime load that x86-compiled windows DLL via a c-based interface in order to access a *WINDOWS* registry API which doesn't even exist on a GNU/Linux system!

i mean... you know, some of the programming things that i've done people simply don't believe me when i tell them, so i've stopped telling them.  but if you asked me to make up a paragraph like the above, not only could i not do it because i wouldn't possibly believe it myself but also i would be laughing so hard i couldn't type at the keyboard.

the things that are wrong with that paragraph... there are so many i don't know where to begin.  i mean... people _have_ tried porting Wine to the ARM architecture: one person actually managed to get ARM-based proprietary WINCE applications to correctly execute.  but those are *ARM* binaries.  

can someone please therefore take a reaaall good look at this insanity, and perhaps add some options to libreoffice which make it possible to simply cut it out - entirely?

l.
Comment 1 Rene Engelhard 2012-02-25 06:14:10 UTC 
Stephen already correctly explained it to you on debian-arm why this .dll is there (and note that this all was inherited from OOo anyway)

How are you going to make cross-platform extensions developing *for* Windows?
you need the .dll.

And shipping it as a binary gotten from somewhere maybe is usual but not sane and thus *me* added the cross-compilation feature (which most distros don't, unfortunately), you can use the binary .dll, but...
Comment 2 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 2012-02-25 06:21:39 UTC 
yes i received a private message from steven which pointed out (as was not done on the debian-arm mailing list) that the DLL so compiled is actually for shipping to windows users, it's not _actually_ for use on the target system.

i still find it hilarious that gcc is being used for cross-compiling x86 _windows_ code... on an ARM GNU/Linux system.
Comment 3 Michael Stahl (allotropia) 2012-10-23 19:18:04 UTC 
as already explained, the DLL is part of the SDK and required
so that extensions developed with the SDK can be deployed
on Windows.

if you don't have MinGW you can always copy in the binary DLL
or configure --disable-odk.