Subject: Re: how to re-build Cygwin core package?
From: Gernot Hillier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Cc: Igor Pechtchanski <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 08:53:38 +0200

Hi Igor!

Thx for your quick reply!

Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
> Why not build from CVS HEAD?  Not only does this ensure that you get the
> latest fixes, but also the CVS build is much less painful than the source
> package build.  The source package is really provided mostly for
> reference.

Well, I need Cygwin for production use and therefore, I prefer to use released 
versions instead of the current CVS snapshot. Also, we used the current 
Cygwin versions since some time and changing it now may break much, I fear...

> > So now my question is: what exactly is the process used for building the
> > "official" cygwin core binary packages? Should I replace the cygwin,
> > mingw-runtime and w32api packages all at once to have a clean new Cygwin?
>
> Depends on what exactly is changed.  If the changes are limited to the
> Cygwin DLL, replacing just the DLL should suffice.  

I assume that only the DLL should change. But for some reason (I assume newer 
compiler) all binaries I get look different than these of the original binary 
package. 

Therefore, to have a "clean" base package, I thought recreating it completely 
would be better (mainly because of other libraries and headers which are 
somehow dependent directly from cygwin1.dll). But as more I think about it 
now, the more I assume the only clean way would be to recompile all packages 
- which I definitely don't want to do. So just replacing the dll should be as 
good as replacing 2 or three core packages only. Right?

> If some method signatures changed 
[...]

No. It's only a small semantic fix, nothing in the API.

> Unfortunately, Cygwin does not have a Cygwin-specific readme in
> /usr/share/doc/Cygwin...  Do, however, search this list (or the Cygwin
> site) for "mknetrel" (or, better, "mknetrel build cygwin").

Thx for this hint! Will do so...

> Incidentally, two issues should be mentioned.  One is licensing: if you
> intend to distribute the modified version of the Cygwin package, your
> changes are automatically GPL'd, and you should distribute the full
> source, including the changes.  I would recommend, however, instead of
> creating a yet another copy of Cygwin ("YACOC"? Nah!), to consider
> contributing the patch into the main Cygwin development (you'll need a
> copyright assignment, see <http://cygwin.com/contrib.html>.  I would also
> recommend subscribing to the cygwin-developers list in that case...

Well, sorry. Should've mentioned this: I want to add Pierre's POSIX root patch 
which was already posted to the cygwin-patches list but not yet included 
(http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-patches/2004-q3/msg00039.html). 

But thx for noting this! Certainly we respect the GPL and other Open Source 
licenses and not only try to fulfill their requirements but whenever possible 
(and sensible) we feedback our changes to the original projects. I think this 
is only fair in exchange of the value one can take from the community "for 
free".

-- 
Bye,

Gernot Hillier
CT SE 2
Siemens AG, Mch P

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