Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2024 16:16:02 +0100
To: "Marvin.C.Scott@gd-ms.com" <Marvin.C.Scott@gd-ms.com>
Subject: Re: CYGWIN 1.5.3 END OF SUPPORT OR LIFE
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From: Corinna Vinschen via Cygwin <cygwin@cygwin.com>
Reply-To: cygwin@cygwin.com
Cc: Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin@cygwin.com>,
        "cygwin@cygwin.com" <cygwin@cygwin.com>
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Hi Marvin,

On Jan 29 22:24, Marvin.C.Scott--- via Cygwin wrote:
> Good day -
> 
> I represent a logistics team of users of CYGWIN freeware for a
> government contract. In my role I am responsible for tracking support
> and end of life for software assets.
> 
> In the before mentioned effort mentioned above I have a general
> question.
> 
> Do CYGWIN freeware developers or contributors enact any end or

Careful, please.  Cygwin is NOT freeware!

Cygwin is licensed per the GNU General Public License version 3(*), and
that contains a couple of restrictions and responsibilities you should
be aware of.  If you're unsure about the difference, I urge you to
contact your company's laywer to make sure you're in the clear.

> specific date when versions downloaded are available to users?

No, we don't.  In fact, there's even a "Cygwin time machine" on the
net(**), where you can grab basically any old version of Cygwin.

> I pose this question as my users currently employ a version prior the
> latest 3.4.9-1 September 2023 release. I assume the only negative
> impacts of using earlier version would be that my team would not have
> current bug fixes.

That's the gist of it, plus new features or changed behaviour to
more closely follow POSIX.

However, if your users actually use version 1.5.3, as the subject of
your mail implies, they are using a version which is more than 20(!)
years old.

Also, Cygwin 1.5.3 only exists in a 32 bit version.

Given that practically all recent hardware is 64 bit, most users of
Cygwin switched to 64 bit versions of Windows, and recent Cygwin
versions (3.4.0 and later) are only available as 64 bit versions,
you're *very* far behind.  We can't give any kind of support For
20 years old Cygwin releases, naturally.


Corinna

(*) https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html
(**) http://www.crouchingtigerhiddenfruitbat.org/Cygwin/timemachine.html

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