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From: "Alex Malinovich" <baggend AT howlermonkey DOT net>
To: <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: RE: Windows XP Fix
Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 16:03:09 -0500
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I don't mean to beat a dead horse here, but I've been on this list for 3
months now and I still haven't seen these particular issues addressed,
so I'm going to address what I can and question what I can't. I don't
mean to offend someone, so if this irritates you, I do apologize. Feel
free to ignore me and follow other more enjoyable pursuits. :)

> It stuns me how many people are doing beta testing for Microsoft's 
> latest closed source nightmare, but don't want to dig in to 
> the problems 
> they encounter with open source projects on that platform.  Yet they 
> expect us -- who do not have this AS YET UNRELEASED operating 
> system -- 
> to fix something in the code for them.

Keep in mind that not EVERYONE who uses Cygwin is a programmer. And keep
in mind that there are varying skill levels among those who are. I, for
one, am just a hobby programmer. I just BEGAN learning C++ a few months
ago. (Though I've been using Pascal and Perl for YEARS.) I, for one, do
not have the skill necessary to dig deep into the Cygwin code and do
fixes. I also have no real experience with developing native W32 apps,
so DLLs are all foreign to me. I'm just using myself as an example here,
but I'm sure I'm not the only one.


> Not "replace your bash.exe and magically your tcsh will start 
> working if 
> you've installed the cygwin-1.1.2 dll."  or whatever it was that you 
> were suggesting (I know, that "quote" is an exaggeration...)
>

Is this the "right" way to fix this problem? No. Does this even really
fix the problem? Not really. MIGHT it work for someone? Absolutely. If
John Q. Public just upgraded to XP from 2000 and needs, for whatever
reason (mission critical or not), to use Cygwin, I don't think he'll
care if he's fixing something "properly." Hell, if there's a chance that
rubbing chicken blood on his right buttock while standing on his head
and reciting "Somewhere over the rainbow" will make his Cygwin work
enough to run whatever he needs (or wants) to run I'm sure he'll
probably do it. I agree, this will quite possibly stunt XP development
as people will use this "magic formula" instead of actually fixing the
problem. But... (see below)

> No.  I don't care.  Remember, free software is about freedom: 
> I'm free 
> to scratch MY itch by digging into the code.  My itch collection does 
> not currently (and will not ever, if I can help it) include 
> "XP".

... you've said it yourself, you don't care whether or not Cygwin works
on XP. I'm sure there are LOTS of people who share your views. In that
case, posting a workaround to shut at least SOME people up who would
otherwise just subscribe to the list to tell us all that "Cygwin doesn't
work in XP" would, I think, be a positive thing. Once XP is released,
yank the info off the page so that a REAL solution can be found. But I
believe that having a half-assed, half-functional copy of Cygwin on a
half-assed OS such as XP is a better solution than no Cygwin at all,
esp. for the few people out there for whom rolling back to 2000 isn't an
option. 


> her j.d. -- I'm not sure.]  Geez -- I'm already a year 
> overdue with my 
> Ph.D. thesis; you want me to spend MORE of my time on cygwin 
> so that it 
> works on an OS that I personally don't give a rat's **** for?

Good luck with your thesis. :) And I don't think that this particular
thread was intended to tell you to FIX anything. It was a temporary
workaround that someone had luck with, and they've used successfully.
I'm sure you've seen FAQ pages for various products with something along
the lines of "Some users have had luck with performing steps X, Y, Z.
This is not a supported fix however, so we cannot offer technical
support if it does/does not work."

> incantations are just that -- magic.  It may be a race condition that 
> appears on *your* version of XP -- and is somehow fixed by variant 
> execution delay paths in bash-2.0.5-2 instead of -7.  On your system. 
> With your collection of background services.  And your optimization 
> tweaks.  On your filesystem. And with your particular 
> collection of XP 
> core dlls -- which may be different from the final "gold" ones.

A 1 in a million chance of a fix working for someone is, IMO, better
than that user banging his head on the desk saying "I have to wait 'till
October, I have to wait 'till October, I have to wait 'till October."


> status.  There's no reason, then, to post a list of anecdotes on the 
> webpage; that's what the mailing list is for.  (Well, that and 
> complaints about brokenness coupled with personal excuses).


This is just my personal view on mailing lists in general, but if
there's something that you KNOW will be asked on a mailing list, it
usually saves you quite a bit of aggrevation if you tell people about it
ahead of time instead of making them post a message that will only
irritate you. Since the note about Cygwin not working in XP was posted
on the main page, I've seen a great reduction in the number of "my
Cygwin doesn't work on XP" posts. What's to say that posting a
half-assed workaround wouldn't help reduce it further? (This isn't meant
to be confrontational, it's just a suggestion. I hate seeing endless XP
questions on here just as much as the next guy.)


> Well...I don't like to flame people, but I'll do it if pushed.  Chris 
> has been pushed, lately, so I cut him some slack on that point. 
> However, the attitude of "we don't support beta OS's until they are 
> released"?  Yeah, I think most of us agree with that.  As I 
> said, we've 
> got enough to keep us busy for months -- on currently released OS's.


You're a developer, not a help-desk person. The fact that people expect
help-desk-like service here is unfortunate, though understandable. I,
for one, don't WANT or EXPECT you to stay all calm and collected no
matter what happens. Every one of the developers who I've seen posting
on here since I've been around have been very helpful and dedicated, but
I know you all have your "raw nerves" that someone is bound to touch.
From personal experience, however, I've noticed that annoying people
leave MUCH more quickly when they are ignored than when you argue back
at them. That just keeps them going. Knowing my luck, this message will
end up ignored so as to state, without speaking, that I am one of those
annoying people. ;) As long as it results in some peace and quiet on
this list for a period of more than about 3 days, I'll still be happy.
:)

-Alex

P.s. Chuck, if it's nice and sunny out where you're at, please go
outside for MY sake. :) I'm being rained on something awful at the
moment, so I'd MUCH rather be basking in sunlight than in the blue glow
of my monitor. :)


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