About library objects name in Cygwin/MinGW

Hi,

Currently, library name of xvidcore in cygwin/mingw is defined by
configure.in as follows.

     [[cC]][[yY]][[gG]][[wW]][[iI]][[nN]]*|mingw32*|mks*)
    AC_MSG_RESULT([ok])
    STATIC_LIB="xvidcore.\$(STATIC_EXTENSION)"
    SHARED_LIB="xvidcore.\$(SHARED_EXTENSION)"

For this reason, when using xvidcore as an external library of other
projects(ffmpeg, mencoder, etc...), I always have to rename/copy/simlink
xvidcore(.dll).a to libxvidcore(.dll).a.

So, what is the reason the library name differs from the case of other
environment?
I know nothing about mks.
however, I think that it is appropriate to attach ”lib" to a library name
when target_os=cygwin/mingw.

Regards,
Motofumi