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Re: Distributing cygwin-based software


On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 09:32:16PM +0200, Soeren Nils Kuklau wrote:
>Hi,
>
>we're working on a cross-platform server daemon, and on the Windows 
>side, we have chosen to use Cygwin for POSIX compatibility reasons. We 
>have run into several issues on the way:
>
>1) We've looked at `cygrunsrv', and it appears to be a convenient tool 
>for setting our daemon up as an NT service.  For people that do not have 
>Cygwin installed, can we just distribute `cygrunsrv' as stand-alone tool 
>to go inside our daemon's working directory?

Again, as was answered in the cygwin-licensing mailing list, the tool is
distributed under the GPL.  I don't understand why you are asking this
question again.  Comply with the GPL and you can do whatever you want
with the code.

>2) Similarly, what about distributing `cygwin1.dll' - I am aware of the 
>"dllpath hell" problem this causes; what is the preferred option here?

The preferred option is not to distribute the DLL but to point to the
cygwin web site and tell people to install it from there.  This mailing
list is primarily for discussing the cygwin distribution, not for
talking about ways not to do things with the cygwin distribution.

However, to answer your question, if you are really intent on going down
this path, you should do rigorous checking to make sure that there is no
conflicting version of cygwin on the system.  Look for a cygwin DLL in
the path and in the system directories.  You can search for strings
beginning with '%% ' in the cygwin DLL to get version information or you
can grab the version information from the DLL headers (you'll undoubtedly
have to do research to figure out how to do the latter).

And, make sure that the user knows that your users know that they
shouldn't be coming to the cygwin mailing list if they have problems
since you're distribution is != the cygwin distribution.

>3) Cross-posting from the other mail: I also found rather little 
>documentation on `cygrunsrv'. The bundled README file comprehensively 
>lists possible arguments, but appears to assume that the daemon to be 
>run is inside the Cygwin root directory (such as C:\Cygwin), whereas we 
>believe it would make more sense to distribute our package for 
>installation inside Windows' Program Files folder. Does `cygrunsrv' 
>understand Windows-like paths, or can we rely on a `/cygdrive/c/Program\ 
>Files/'-like path structure?

Isn't this question simply answered by just trying cygrunsrv with
windows paths and seeing if it works?  If not, then maybe the source
code would be instructive.

FWIW, you shouldn't expect to find much documentation in any cygwin
package for doing things in a way that is counter to common practice in
the cygwin distribution.  That is very much not something that we are
interested in supporting.

cgf

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