Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com; run by ezmlm
Sender: cygwin-owner AT sources DOT redhat DOT com
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 17:42:33 -0500
From: Christopher Faylor <cgf AT redhat DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Cygwin CD?
Message-ID: <20010322174233.A19392@redhat.com>
Reply-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
References: <3ABA4CC9 DOT 809 AT obj-sys DOT com> <3ABA7942 DOT A31966AC AT ece DOT gatech DOT edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.11i
In-Reply-To: <3ABA7942.A31966AC@ece.gatech.edu>; from cwilson@ece.gatech.edu on Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 05:14:26PM -0500

On Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 05:14:26PM -0500, Charles S. Wilson wrote:
>Ed Day wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Christopher,
>> 
>> I was wondering if a CD is available with all of this Cygwin stuff on
>> it?  Trying to do the Internet install is painful.  I have been at it
>> all afternoon and am getting nowhere.  I don't know how you guys make
>> your money, but I for one would have no problem paying a fee for the
>> convenience of getting this stuff on CD.
>
>Based on information in this list, it appears that Red Hat (who bought
>Cygnus about a year ago) has no interest in publishing a CD containing
>cygwin.  However, several folks on this list have offered to burn CD's
>with the latest stuff and mail it for a small fee --- Earnie Boyd was
>one such person, I believe. See http://earniesystems.safeshopper.com/ 
>(although the store itself is "temporarily closed for repairs")

Yeah, I should probably give more details.  It's been a while.

Cygwin development is sponsored by Red Hat primarily to provide an
environment for building the GNUpro toolset under Windows.  The group
that is responsible for doing this is me (manager, developer) and
Corinna (developer).  I also manage part of the gdb group.

Red Hat (formerly Cygnus) did produce a Cygwin CD a couple of years ago
that was on store shelves.  IMO, it sold remarkably well given that it
had little marketing support.  However, the powers that be eventually
decided that my branch of Red Hat should not be in the end-user product
biz and the CD was canned.

There was a plan, at one point, to produce a Cygwin CD sometime in
the beginning of 2001 but the person responsible for spearheading
the effort has left the company and it seems like there is no
support for doing anything like this in Red Hat.  There used to be words
on the Cygwin web page that mentioned the possibility of a CD.  I've
updated them recently to reflect the new reality.

Red Hat will eventually offer GNUpro for Windows but this will be a
limited Cygwin offering (featuring Cygwin 1.2.0) that just contains the
compiler/linker/debugger and random user tools needed for building.  It
won't contain anywhere near the number of packages available on the
Cygwin CD.  It also won't be available in stores or at retail prices.
It will accompany a standard Red Hat Engineering Services support
contract.

Ironically, thanks to the ease of use of the new net installation
and the abundance of packages now available, more and more people
within Red Hat are using Cygwin as their Windows environment.  Actually
this is not really that ironic since this is exactly what I'd hoped
for when I started the new cygwin net effort just about a year ago.

So, if it isn't clear, the effort that Corinna, DJ and I put into
supporting this mailing list and the net release is pretty much
a volunteer effort.  Of course Red Hat does benefit to some extent
from bug reports and "beta testing" so this is not entirely a
one-sided affair.  However, telling the 1000th person to read
the documentation in /usr/doc/Cygwin is not really a value add
activity.  :-)

Some times there is a clear win-win with the stuff that we do.  For
instance, Corinna's efforts with openssh were due to primarily to my
desire to have something that was easy to use for Red Hat engineers on
Windows.  Obviously you all are seeing the benefits of this as well.

So, anyway, I don't see a Cygwin CD anywhere on the horizon.  The FSF is
supposed to be producing a CD sometime in the next couple of months,
though.  It will just be a collection of the Cygwin binaries and
sources, employing the standard "setup.exe" to install things.  I'll
announce it here when I know more about this.

cgf

--
Want to unsubscribe from this list?
Check out: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple