Bootstrapping MinGW
MinGW source packages have a circular dependency:
mingw32-gcc <---------------+
| | required for |
+----+ +---+ |
| required for | |
V V |
mingw32-runtime mingw32-w32api |
| | |
+--------------+----------------+
So when you build mingw32-gcc for the first time, you have to get a binary of mingw32-runtime & mingw32-w32api from somewhere.
Note this only applies the first time or if you are building from scratch on a brand new system. Later builds can just build using earlier installs.
Bootstrap packages
To break the dependency we normally use two special packages, mingw32-runtime-bootstrap and mingw32-w32api-bootstrap.
These two non-Fedora packages contain the binaries of runtime & w32api, from MinGW's download site.
Once these are installed, you can build mingw32-gcc, followed by the real mingw32-runtime and mingw32-w32api (from source).
Obsoletes
When mingw32-runtime and mingw32-w32api final packages are installed, they obsolete the -bootstrap packages which are no longer needed or useful.