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Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 14:04:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Peter A. Castro" <doctor AT fruitbat DOT org>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Request for a version/ revision/ release number for the whole Cygwin release/ distribution
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Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0410011333280.25278@ming.fruitbat.org>
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On Fri, 1 Oct 2004, Eric Hanchrow wrote:

> For what it's worth, I'm at this very moment moving my company's build
> system away from Cygwin, for precisely reason number 4: I cannot tell
> customers which Cygwin version to get.

Stock answer: use what's current

Cygwin is an ever-changing project and it's really best for all concerned
to keep up with the flow.  Yes, it may be a little painful if you haven't
refreshed in a while (say, from the "b20" days :), but you will have
something current and the maintainers are more likely to help out with
solving a problem (should you have any).

We use Cygwin for our NT builds at work.  One developer hadn't updated in
over a year and was starting to encounter some strange interactions with
the latest Windows Service Pack.  He did a refresh to current Cygwin
stuff, had to update one env var (CYGWIN), and things were smooth
sailing.  There were some new things he'd been wishing for that
"magically" appeared with the refresh too boot :)

If you are advocating Cygwin for a customer who is using your products,
then it really is your responsbility to keep current and make sure things
are working with the latest Cygwin packages.  This is true, reguardless
of which OS/distro you are using.  This will help your customers in the
long run, because you are being vigilant and helping them when they have
problems.  It's part of customer service.  Besides, it's fairly painless
to run setup and simply let it upgrade existing packages.

And, if you really must have a static image/snapshot of Cygwin, then keep
the setup.ini that you used for your own work as well as the locally
downloaded packages and offer that to your customers.  This kind of
solution has been attempted before by others (see the archives).  The
real problem is that no matter what you snapshot, it will become out of
date very quickly, and if you have problems, the stock reply from every
Cygwin maintainer will be "upgrade to what's current first, then we'll
look at your problem".  This sentiment is fairly prevalent in many
software businesses.

Anyway, just my $0.02

-- 
Peter A. Castro <doctor AT fruitbat DOT org> or <Peter DOT Castro AT oracle DOT com>
	"Cats are just autistic Dogs" -- Dr. Tony Attwood

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