I misunderstood the situation.
DEFINES=
ifeq ($(canonical_host_type),i686-pc-msdosmsvc)
DEFINES=-DWIN32 -DGSL_DLL
endif
The above part is for the msvc (Microsoft Visual C++) build
for windows and is not related to
build using gcc (mingw) (cross and native) for windows.
The last official version of octave built by the msvc is 3.6.4.
However, there are still some people those who use that version.
I guess that that is for the integration of the Microsoft Visual Studio.
I had tried to build octave on native windows using the mingw build stuff which
is embedded in octave distribution and gotten successful results.
Theoretically if one prepare all dependencies are prepared using the msvc,
octave can be built on windows using the msvc.
Fortunately the above part has no relationship to the current octave for windows
(built by mxe-octave).
My opinion is that leave the above.
If they are to be preserved, it would be nice to add a comment explaining
why they are useful.
# The below are preserved for those who attempt to build this package on octave
build
by msvc compiler