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 <Z8rlZlA_OJnG5iq4@calimero.vinschen.de>
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Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2025 15:43:15 +0100
Message-ID: <CALXu0UeyvWJA4URg_06vaarg-=Atgr45zPYy7SuGxocrb4QQmg@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Tool for listing sparse file layout
To: cygwin@cygwin.com
From: Cedric Blancher via Cygwin <cygwin@cygwin.com>
Reply-To: Cedric Blancher <cedric.blancher@gmail.com>
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On Fri, 7 Mar 2025 at 13:24, Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin@cygwin.com> wrote:
>
> [Redirected to the cygwin mailing list]
>
>
> Don't send unsolicited private email, use the mailing lists.
>
>
> On Mar  7 11:19, Cedric Blancher wrote:
> > Good morning!
> >
> > Corinna,
> > could you please add the following tool to cygwin-utils-extra package
> > for Cygwin 3.6? It's SUN's old utility to list the layout of sparse
> > files
> >
> > I figured we need such a tool because otherwise we only have fsutil,
> > which uses the native Win32 API, but nothing based on SEEK_DATA
> > [...]
>
> You really need to work on your expectations.
>
> We're all volunteers.  We're not getting payed for what we're doing.
> We're not working for your personal happiness.
>
> Stop telling us what we're supposed to do for you.  It's pretty
> annoying how you're exerting group pressure with (per last counting)
> five accounts to let us do your bidding on the Cygwin mailing list.

Apologies. This was not intended.

Just the bigger picture: We do bioinformatics, which includes the
tasks of creating, processing, storing, copying, moving, backup and
restoring sparse files.
Until now (before Cygwin added sparse file support, for which I am
VERY GRATEFUL!!) doing this on Windows was a serious PAIN, causing
many problems, which all ended up on my radar.

What we decided last year is to try and fix the WHOLE situation from
beginning (file creation) over middle (copy, move, transfer,
filtering) to the end (backup, destore, delete), and do that for every
IT provider and operating system as needed.
I even decided to get my own hands dirty, get GE HealthCare
(ex-Amersham), NIH, IBM+Oracle (IT providers) and the involved
universities all into the boat, and FIX sparse file bugs. CERN, NIH,
DESY and Oracle Linux staff also joined the fray.

That is lots of work, with many meetings, and not every software
vendor is keen to mop up issues.
Let alone Microsoft needed 3 years to add /sparse to xcopy, and only
did that in a way which requires the latest Win11 version; the
powershell sparse file bugs are still all in limbo. Thus I am happy
that Cygwin has now support to copy, move and backup sparse files in a
RELIABLE and Windows-version independent manner.

> It was enlightening seeing you starting to do the same on the portable
> OpenSSH developers mailing list just three days ago.  You're certainly
> not making a lot of friends this way.

Sign, I didn't start that one.
But I apologize and agree I shouldn't mix management behaviour towards
half-unwilling commercial entities with open source projects.

>
> Getting on-topic:
>
> There's no cygwin-utils-extra package.

cygutils-extra

> If you want that package in the
> distro, do it yourself and become Cygwin package maintainer:
>
> https://cygwin.com/packages.html

Is it wise to put a simple utility in a separate package?

>
> As for your other wishes changing Cygwin to your supposed needs.  Roll
> up your sleeves, dive into the source code and provide patches yourself:

That I am doing right now. Mostly by testing/collecting bug reports,
scheduling meetings, and getting software vendors to fix their bugs,
but I honestly do not contribute much code. I barely have enough time
to deal with commercial software vendors to fix their sparse file
bugs, on top of my normal duties.
But yes, I will try harder in the future.

Ced
-- 
Cedric Blancher <cedric.blancher@gmail.com>
[https://plus.google.com/u/0/+CedricBlancher/]
Institute Pasteur

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