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From: "lhall at pop dot ma dot ultranet dot com" <lhall at pop dot ma dot ultranet dot com>
To: shankar at cotagesoft dot com,  cygwin at cygwin dot com
Subject: Re: Repost, different list...File::Spec, cygwin, Syntactic vs.  Semanticpath analysis
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 13:48:49 -0500
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Original Message:
-----------------
>From: Shankar Unni shankar@cotagesoft=2Ecom
>Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 10:30:23 -0800
>To: cygwin@cygwin=2Ecom
>Subject: Re: Repost, different list=2E=2E=2EFile::Spec, cygwin, Syntactic=
 vs=2E=20
>Semanticpath analysis
>
>
>linda w (cyg) wrote:
>
>> =09What were the _original_ design goals of Cygwin -- i=2Ee=2E as=20
>> sponsored by "RedHat"?
>
>Cygwin predates RedHat=2E See http://cygwin=2Ecom/history=2Ehtml  (the=20=

>earliest date in the file is Dec 1995)=2E RedHat bought Cygnus Solutions=20=

>(which was a shop for commercial support for GNU software, especially=20
>GCC ports to obscure and new platforms), which did the original Cygwin
work=2E
>
>Anyone at RedHat from the original Cygwin team (the last warriors of the=20=

>(in)famous "Beta 20" :-)?) wanna answer this?
>
>There's an interesting line in the early changelogs:
>
>    Release Beta 8
>    [=2E=2E=2E]
>    Much nicer way of describing paths, eg //c/foo is c:\foo=2E
>
>Suggests that the early goal *was* to provide a POSIX-y view, and the=20
>exposing of Windows paths was added as a convenience=2E=2E

Bingo!  I didn't start using Cygwin until B13 but that's always been my
understanding of the goals for Cygwin=2E  POSIX/Unix compatibility first,
Windows conveniences where it doesn't inhibit the former=2E  Perhaps the
early maintainers of Cygwin might have a different view but this is=20
definitely in-line with the original internal (Cygnus) goals of an=20
environment for Windows which could be used to port the GNU Pro product=20=

suite=2E

I swore I wasn't going to step into the middle of this discussion! ;-)
Oh well=2E

Larry

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