FW: press for cygwin

FW: press for cygwin

[Mark Bradshaw]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles Wilson [ mailto:cwilson@ece.gatech.edu ]
> Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 11:07 AM
> To: Mark Bradshaw
> Cc: 'cygwin@cygwin.com'
> Subject: Re: press for cygwin
> 
> 
> Mark Bradshaw wrote:
> 
> > Hmm...  Should I paint a bulls eye on my chest here.  Eh.  Why not.
> 
> 
> Actually, even a year ago it would have been a good idea to 
> contact the 
> list, or Red Hat, and asked for some fact-checking help.  
> There are some 
> errors in your article -- esp. the WinZip thing -- that we could have 
> helped you avoid prior to publication.
> 
> Most opensource projects are so overjoyed to get press that 
> they will be 
> very helpful to writers and reporters.  (And it IS possible to get 
> fact-checking help from your primary sources without giving up your 
> journalistic independence or integrity.)

I did contact the list.  Had the help of some members.  WinZip was an
acceptable choice at the time.  The packages weren't in bz2 format, and I
don't need symlinks, etc. for the install to work.

> > 
> > Couple of quick notes on the thread.  
> > 
> > 1)  Complete agreement with Jonathon Merz on the WinZip 
> thing.  Going to bz2
> > just to thwart WinZip doesn't seem like a good use of 
> energy.  Unfortunately
> > at the time I wrote the article bz2 wasn't in use for the 
> packages.  WinZip,
> > being the most popular zip tool for Windows, seemed the 
> obvious choice for
> > unzipping the cygwin packages.  You wouldn't believe how 
> long it takes to
> > get an article printed. :(
> 
> 
> But you missed the point of my original response: WinZip creates a 
> *broken* installation.  The necessary registry entries are 
> not created, 
> and many packages contain symlinks which WinZip won't recreate. I'm 
> surprised you were able to get it to work at all, when 
> installing using 
> WinZip.  (You *did* test your own instructions on a clean 
> machine, right?)

It's not broken if you're just installing ssh, which is all the article
covers.  Yes, I did test it.

> > 
> > 2)  Goes the same for the references to old versions, etc.  
> The article's
> > almost a year old now, believe it or not.
> 
> 
> Well, that's forgivable, then. :-)
> 
> 
> > 3)  Yes I know it's an unsupported install, but I think the 
> point was missed
> > here.  Many windows admins won't install the full cygwin 
> installation, and
> > most won't have a clue what to do with bash, etc.  The 
> point here isn't to
> > exclude people from a great tool, but to help make an 
> intermediate step more
> > palatable.  I know many will disagree with this, with 
> sentiments along the
> > lines of "They should just learn how to work with it."  I 
> disagree.  I think
> > it's worth it to get telnet replaced, in whatever fashion 
> that happens.
> > Bashless or not.
> 
> 
> The following reference wasn't available "back then" but it is now: 
> Michael Erdeley has a nice reference on a minimal ssh/cygwin 
> installation.
> 
> http://tech.erdeleynet.com/cygwin-sshd.asp

Thanks for the link.  I'm aware of Michael's info.  In fact, I'm on his list
and answer questions from time to time.

> 
> 
> > 4)  The weird "ps &-ef" and "kill &-HUP <PID>" commands are 
> not my fault.
> > <whine>  The publisher's somehow managed to screw up some 
> of the command
> > lines.  </whine>  They will be corrected soon hopefully.
> 
> 
> Yeah, that's what I thought.
> 
> 
> > I apologize if I've stepped on some toes with this article. 
>  I know that
> > here I'm talking to the folks who are satisfied with the full cygwin
> > install, or are knowledgeable enough about it to install 
> the portions
> > necessary without the hand holding.  You aren't the target 
> audience for a
> > piece like this.  I hoped to catch those people who are 
> largely unaware of
> > cygwin and ssh and maybe give them a push into using it.  
> > 
> 
> 
> Our main complaint comes from this:  hand holding for newbies 
> is a good 
> and necessary thing -- but the instructions given need to be 
> accurate. 
> And if your instructions are wrong, or lead to a broken 
> installation -- 
> *WE* (the cygwin project) get the blame for a "crappy product".  "I 
> tried that piece of #@!^ but couldn't get it to work."  etc.
> 
> Or, "I followed the instructions at .... and STILL can't get 
> cygwin to 
> work" messages on the mailing list.
> 
> --Chuck
> 

Understood.  Feel free to point them my way.  "He did it."

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soapbox - was: press for cygwin

[Tim Baggett]

Hi Mark, 

Good to see the author of the article replying to the list. I went to the
Cygwin site and did a search using your name. Good to see that you've been
on the list for a year, and answering quite a number of questions
regarding SSH and Cygwin. Even better, was the fact that your answers were
polite rather than demeaning, which is typical from some
arrogant RedHat/Cygwin folks who often prefer to spend more time showing
an attitude than actually being helpful.


Yes, I actually have a point with this email to the list, and to a very
small group of people 'in charge' specifically. I think Cygwin is an
awesome package, and is an extremely valuable asset in a windows
environment on all levels. In fact, I've been working with RedHat about
our company licensing the DLL because the platform is so useful to me. So
this is the reason I feel compelled to send this email, as I do not want
to see developers pushed away from contributing to this project.

There is a serious problem with attitudes among a few people on this
list. I have been involved in providing support in programming projects
about ten years ago, although not nearly to this level, so I can
understand the frustration of answering questions that are easily
answered by reading a FAQ or searching an archive. However, this list has
NO place for this sort of attitude. I am ashamed that Mark spent a lot of
effort and energy to write an article, only to be slammed by this mail
list. I'm glad to discover that he's been a contributer to this list. I
hope he continues to be a contributer.

I see the problem on the list as a potential to kill this great
project. Too many well meaning people are flamed on the sight of their
emails asking for help when they are first learning about Cygwin. Too many
brilliant people who may be interested in starting to contribute their
talent to coding for Cygwin, I feel, are pushed away by the attitudes on
this list. I know nothing about programming to GNU standards, writing
POSIX code, Windows internals, or even Unix internals. I'd love to learn,
and I've about wore out my Unix environment programming book by Richard
Stevens (best advice I read from this list was to buy this book!), but I
have far too many questions to which some of the great programming wizards
on the list would prefer to show an attitude - based on past behavior on
the list.

To the core group as a whole, consider your documentation. Documentation
is an essential part of project management, yet I see none of that
activity being done here. Check out the following link and see how out
dated the User's Guide is:

http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/installing-binaries.html

How is someone supposed to read through this document and know that the
information they obtain is even partially accurate? I haven't seen an
update to the User's Guide in well over a year. I am thankful to the
volunteer who recently stepped up last month to make some changes to the
FAQ.

No... Do not tell me I need to get involved and take on a documentation
project. I would love to contribute to Cygwin, but I do not know nearly
enough to take on such a task, nor am I part of this elite group who
prefers not to answer beginning questions.

So, I will back down off my soapbox, and return to my lurking and learning
so I can continue with finishing my projects the best way I know how
(although I'm certain isn't the "proper" way it should be done). I'm just
providing some food for thought.

Regards,
Tim

PS: I hope the person taking the Cygwin / WinXP poll will still publish
the results, even though some people made it clear they don't care. Others
might find interesting.


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Re: soapbox - was: press for cygwin

[James Youngman]

Tim Baggett <tim@acca.nmsu.edu> writes:

> I see the problem on the list as a potential to kill this great
> project. 

No, the only thing that has a realistic chance of killing the project
is if the principal developers don't have enough time to work on the
project, and nobody steps into the gap.

-- 
James Youngman
Manchester, UK.  +44 161 226 7339
PGP (GPG) key ID for <jay@gnu.org> is 64A95EE5 (F1B83152).

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Re: soapbox - was: press for cygwin

[Christopher Faylor]

On Sat, Sep 01, 2001 at 12:57:07AM +0100, James Youngman wrote:
>Tim Baggett <tim@acca.nmsu.edu> writes:
>>I see the problem on the list as a potential to kill this great
>>project.
>
>No, the only thing that has a realistic chance of killing the project
>is if the principal developers don't have enough time to work on the
>project, and nobody steps into the gap.

Either that or we lose interest.  Same effect, I guess.

Luckily the prospect of pounding on sow's ears until they take on
the aspect of a silk purse when viewed from a 5 watt bulb stills
holds some allure to me.

cgf

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Re: FW: press for cygwin

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Fri, Aug 31, 2001 at 12:39:25PM -0400, Mark Bradshaw wrote:
> 
> I did contact the list.  Had the help of some members.  WinZip was an
> acceptable choice at the time.  The packages weren't in bz2 format, and I
> don't need symlinks, etc. for the install to work.

So I assume your minimal SSH install package on

    http://www.networksimplicity.com/openssh/

wasn't available then?  For the curious people: Take a look onto
Mark's page.  It allows already the sort of simple OpenSSH
installation which uses Cygwin but without installing a whole
Cygwin environment AND the README file doesn't contain the
slightest hint to direct questions to the cygwin mailing list.

And it's very clear that the intended audience is not full of
Cygwin developers ;-)

Corinna

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Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Developer                                mailto:cygwin@cygwin.com
Red Hat, Inc.

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Re: soapbox - was: press for cygwin

[Ronald W. Cook]

I would like to thank the cygwin developers and contributors
once again for all their hard efforts and time.

Sometime in my life, I was taught "Never look a gift horse in
the mouth."  For those who don't know what that means, a
horse has teeth that are very revealing of its age.

In particular, I almost sent a letter to Harold for Test 46 and
picked up Test 47 the next day having the new, at least one
way, clipboard feature.  So, thanks Harold.

I've even had my ears burnt/boxed from sending Christopher
personal mail.  Unless you contribute or develop and are
sanctioned - that is a no, no.  Like I said, thanks.

I thought the exchange between Mark and the list went quite
well, actually, considering enlightenment of perspectives.

Thankfully lurking,
Ron

PS.  I haven't figured how to keep my mail resources from
writing stupid date formats and don't want to perpetuate them
by going to a list so, I guess I am lacking of something  - time?
cowaro.com



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Re: soapbox - was: press for cygwin

[J. J. Farrell]

From: Tim Baggett <tim@acca.nmsu.edu>
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 17:50:25 -0600 (MDT)
>
> Even better, was the fact that your answers were
> polite rather than demeaning, which is typical from some
> arrogant RedHat/Cygwin folks who often prefer to spend more time showing
> an attitude than actually being helpful.

I was interested to hear this about the RedHat folks. Could you
let us have more precise details? For example - in August, how
many hours did Chris and Corinna spend showing an attitude and
how many hours did they spend working on Cygwin? Or do you not
consider doing things like improving the setup mechanism and
porting and enhancing OpenSSH to run on Cygwin as being helpful?

> To the core group as a whole, consider your documentation. Documentation
> is an essential part of project management, yet I see none of that
> activity being done here. Check out the following link and see how out
> dated the User's Guide is:
> 
> http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/installing-binaries.html
> 
> How is someone supposed to read through this document and know that the
> information they obtain is even partially accurate? I haven't seen an
> update to the User's Guide in well over a year. I am thankful to the
> volunteer who recently stepped up last month to make some changes to the
> FAQ.
> 
> No... Do not tell me I need to get involved and take on a documentation
> project. I would love to contribute to Cygwin, but I do not know nearly
> enough to take on such a task, nor am I part of this elite group who
> prefers not to answer beginning questions.

It's a shame that you can't do this yourself. It surprises me a
little that you know enough to see that a document is wrong, but
don't know enough to research the incorrect areas, ask questions
of the experts, and then correct the document. I've worked with
many technical authors over the years. None of them knew the
first thing about the projects when they started, and many had
very little technical knowledge at all. All were able to produce
competent user documentation from scratch after a few weeks of
gathering information, and some of their work was outstanding.
I think anyone with reasonable ability in written English, and
enough technical knowledge to use Cygwin, should be able to
update an existing document.

But don't be coy, man - name names! Who precisely is it that you
are demanding should do this work? Chris Faylor? Corinna Vinschen?
Chuck Hansen? Ernie Boyd? One of the many others? Do you have a
cost/benefit analysis to show why it is more important to update
this document than to do the Cygwin-related tasks that they are
currently working on? Or are you demanding that they should give
up more of their time to do it?  In that case, it's probably even
more important to show why it is better for them to do this work
instead of playing with their children, earning a living, going
skiing, or whatever.

> I'm just providing some food for thought.

On the contrary! You're providing a remarkable and entertaining
exposition of your thanklessness, rudeness, arrogance, ingratitude,
and expectation that other people should provide you with something
for nothing as and when you demand it. You're probably also slowing
down the Cygwin development rate - if I were a Cygwin developer,
I'd be wondering why I bother spending my spare time producing
software for people who come back with your sort of attitude, and
I'd probably decide there were far better things to do instead.


I believe the vast majority of Cygwin users are extremely grateful
for all the work that the developers put in on this project. Those
who whine about its deficiencies or complain about the attitudes
of major contributors form a very small minority, even if they are
heard from frequently. For what little they're worth, my thanks to
everyone who contributes to Cygwin.



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Re: soapbox - was: press for cygwin

[Christopher Faylor]

On Sun, Sep 02, 2001 at 02:27:20AM -0700, J. J. Farrell wrote:
>From: Tim Baggett <tim@acca.nmsu.edu>
>Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 17:50:25 -0600 (MDT)
>>
>> Even better, was the fact that your answers were
>> polite rather than demeaning, which is typical from some
>> arrogant RedHat/Cygwin folks who often prefer to spend more time showing
>> an attitude than actually being helpful.
>
>I was interested to hear this about the RedHat folks. Could you
>let us have more precise details? For example - in August, how
>many hours did Chris and Corinna spend showing an attitude and
>how many hours did they spend working on Cygwin? Or do you not
>consider doing things like improving the setup mechanism and
>porting and enhancing OpenSSH to run on Cygwin as being helpful?

I'm about to release Cygwin 1.3.3.  You can see, from the change
description, the amount of effort that Corinna and I and others put into
improving Cygwin.

>>To the core group as a whole, consider your documentation.
>>Documentation is an essential part of project management, yet I see
>>none of that activity being done here.  Check out the following link
>>and see how out dated the User's Guide is:
>>
>> http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/installing-binaries.html
>>
>>How is someone supposed to read through this document and know that the
>>information they obtain is even partially accurate?  I haven't seen an
>>update to the User's Guide in well over a year.  I am thankful to the
>>volunteer who recently stepped up last month to make some changes to
>>the FAQ.
>>
>>No...  Do not tell me I need to get involved and take on a
>>documentation project.  I would love to contribute to Cygwin, but I do
>>not know nearly enough to take on such a task, nor am I part of this
>>elite group who prefers not to answer beginning questions.
>
>It's a shame that you can't do this yourself.  It surprises me a little
>that you know enough to see that a document is wrong, but don't know
>enough to research the incorrect areas, ask questions of the experts,
>and then correct the document.  I've worked with many technical authors
>over the years.  None of them knew the first thing about the projects
>when they started, and many had very little technical knowledge at all.
>All were able to produce competent user documentation from scratch
>after a few weeks of gathering information, and some of their work was
>outstanding.  I think anyone with reasonable ability in written
>English, and enough technical knowledge to use Cygwin, should be able
>to update an existing document.

Right.  In the case of documentation, if someone just contributes actual
words that they think are more appropriate, I'm certainly willing to
update things.

I'd love to have someone to focus on improving the documentation but our
two previous maintainers have moved on to other things and my repeated
pleas for help seem to have been for naught.

Is the quoted chapter in the documentation wrong?  Of course it is.  It's
a bug that the documentation is wrong just like it is a bug that sshd
doesn't work quite right on Windows 95.  We'll deal with it like any
bug and fix it eventually.  If someone actually can get out of their
"I'm too busy/ignorant/disgusted" mode long enough to provide actual
useful text (or code) that always makes things much easier for everyone.

In this particular case, I think that the fact that there is a link on
the main web page for dealing with cygwin installation should mitigate
most of the problems with the incorrect documentation.  The documentation
should be updated, though, of course.

Btw, the last doc update was in June, which is obviously more recent
than "well over a year".

>But don't be coy, man - name names! Who precisely is it that you are
>demanding should do this work?  Chris Faylor?  Corinna Vinschen?  Chuck
>Hansen?  Ernie Boyd?  One of the many others?  Do you have a
>cost/benefit analysis to show why it is more important to update this
>document than to do the Cygwin-related tasks that they are currently
>working on?  Or are you demanding that they should give up more of
>their time to do it?  In that case, it's probably even more important
>to show why it is better for them to do this work instead of playing
>with their children, earning a living, going skiing, or whatever.

I think you mean "Chuck Wilson" but thanks for asking direct questions
like this.

This mail was rather interesting because it seemed to be in response to
a rather mild thread where people were concerned that misinformation
about cygwin would be spread by an inaccurate article.  If I understand
the mail it said basically: "This poor guy has put out a lot of work and
you are all criticizing him for saying one or two wrong things rather
than being appreciative of his efforts."

Heh.  That seems sort of ironic to me.

>I believe the vast majority of Cygwin users are extremely grateful
>for all the work that the developers put in on this project. Those
>who whine about its deficiencies or complain about the attitudes
>of major contributors form a very small minority, even if they are
>heard from frequently. For what little they're worth, my thanks to
>everyone who contributes to Cygwin.

You're welcome.  I appreciate this very much.  I'm sure that the other
"core developers" do too.

cgf

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