Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine]

Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine]

[Andrey Gursky]

Hi cyg Simple,

On 11/9/2016 7:59 AM, Andrey Gursky wrote:
>> 
>> P.S. Was it not too early to remove WinXP support? Though it is
>> officially not supported anymore, there are still PCs running WinXP
>> (and Wine). Also there are still systems, I've heard, using some
>> embedded Windows, that shares the same code with WinXP, thus making it
>> not yet truly obsolete. Additionally a lot of work has been done by
>> Cygwin contributors to support this OS and I believe the most of bugs
>> have been workarounded, while due to stopped development it is not
>> likely one has to spend time solving new problems. So was it really
>> worth to drop the hardly crafted code? Are there already some
>> worthwhile advantages? Why wasn't it possible to switch Cygwin WinXP
>> support to just "not officially supported"? (kindly asking)
> 
> This has been answered.  The problem with supporting XP into infinitude
> is that every application would need to agree to do the same.
> Improvements to the OS API would not be able to be used so there are
> trade-offs for the continued support of an OS that is no longer
> supported.  The code becomes unwieldy to maintain because a change needs
> to be tested on other systems.  Security maintenance becomes impossible
> because the OS vendor no longer supports the older OS.  There is the
> cygwin time machine, USE IT if you need old software for old OS.

Thanks for your reply (however I haven't received it, because you
likely didn't click on "reply all"?).

Do you refer to the recent message [1]?

Regarding cygwin time machine. I can't use it, since cygwin is compiled
for MSYS2. And then it is being run under Wine on GNU/Linux. While
WinXP is still not dead, Wine is definitively not an old OS. It's just
an active project doing WinAPI implementation from scratch according to
documentation. Thus I hope Cygwin developers could talk directly to
Wine ones to find the minimum needed changes in both projects.

Regards,
Andrey

[1] Re: New Cygwin "setup" program useless on my Win-XP box. Not very
    nice at all.
    https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2016-11/msg00060.html

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Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine]

[Corinna Vinschen]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2725 bytes --]

On Nov 10 04:21, Andrey Gursky wrote:
> Hi cyg Simple,
> 
> On 11/9/2016 7:59 AM, Andrey Gursky wrote:
> >> 
> >> P.S. Was it not too early to remove WinXP support? Though it is
> >> officially not supported anymore, there are still PCs running WinXP
> >> (and Wine). Also there are still systems, I've heard, using some
> >> embedded Windows, that shares the same code with WinXP, thus making it
> >> not yet truly obsolete. Additionally a lot of work has been done by
> >> Cygwin contributors to support this OS and I believe the most of bugs
> >> have been workarounded, while due to stopped development it is not
> >> likely one has to spend time solving new problems. So was it really
> >> worth to drop the hardly crafted code? Are there already some
> >> worthwhile advantages? Why wasn't it possible to switch Cygwin WinXP
> >> support to just "not officially supported"? (kindly asking)
> > 
> > This has been answered.  The problem with supporting XP into infinitude
> > is that every application would need to agree to do the same.
> > Improvements to the OS API would not be able to be used so there are
> > trade-offs for the continued support of an OS that is no longer
> > supported.  The code becomes unwieldy to maintain because a change needs
> > to be tested on other systems.  Security maintenance becomes impossible
> > because the OS vendor no longer supports the older OS.  There is the
> > cygwin time machine, USE IT if you need old software for old OS.
> 
> Thanks for your reply (however I haven't received it, because you
> likely didn't click on "reply all"?).
> 
> Do you refer to the recent message [1]?
> 
> Regarding cygwin time machine. I can't use it, since cygwin is compiled
> for MSYS2. And then it is being run under Wine on GNU/Linux. While
> WinXP is still not dead, Wine is definitively not an old OS. It's just
> an active project doing WinAPI implementation from scratch according to
> documentation. Thus I hope Cygwin developers could talk directly to
> Wine ones to find the minimum needed changes in both projects.

Ending XP support was announced last year and only a year later we
actually dropped it.  So we don't support Windows XP anymore, but we
*would* support Wine.  However, the problem here is not on the Cygwin
side.

It seems Cygwin under Wine was not tested outside of XP compatibility
mode, or Wine doesn't support certain post-XP functions albeit claiming
Vista caompatibility.  Cygwin doesn't require any functionality which
isn't available in Vista.


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Maintainer                 cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat

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Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine]

[Herbert Stocker]

Hi,

On 10.11.2016 04:21, Andrey Gursky wrote:
 > Regarding cygwin time machine. I can't use it, since cygwin
 > is compiled for MSYS2. And then it is being run under Wine
 > on GNU/Linux.

So we have two people who have difficulty using time machine.

i did download setup.exe and the binary packages of the last
version with XP support using the "Download but don't Install"
feature of setup.exe . (But i never tested if it's usable).

Now i would like to provide them on an HTTP Server.
i think setup.exe can use such a repository.

Right now i'm not sure if i have to ask for permission to do
so given it is open source.
Am i allowed to do this?


best regards,

Herbert Stocker


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Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine]

[Peter A. Castro]

On Thu, 10 Nov 2016, Herbert Stocker wrote:

> Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2016 23:11:16 +0100
> From: Herbert Stocker <hersto@gmx.de>
> To: cygwin@cygwin.com
> Subject: Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine]
> 
> Hi,

Greetings, Herbert,

> On 10.11.2016 04:21, Andrey Gursky wrote:
>> Regarding cygwin time machine. I can't use it, since cygwin
>> is compiled for MSYS2. And then it is being run under Wine
>> on GNU/Linux.
>
> So we have two people who have difficulty using time machine.
>
> i did download setup.exe and the binary packages of the last
> version with XP support using the "Download but don't Install"
> feature of setup.exe . (But i never tested if it's usable).

I don't understand.  What difficulty did you have?  It sounds like you 
successfully downloaded (I presume) the 32-bit packages from the Time 
Machine?  What was difficult about it?  I really want to know.
If it's just *slow*, well, yes, that's a know problem. :-/

Also, did you pull the source packages?  I recall that one of the 
requirements is that you provide the source packages along with the binary 
packages.
(I expect Corinna will correct me if I'm wrong about that).

> Now i would like to provide them on an HTTP Server.

If you do, please let me know so I can add reference to it in the Time 
Machine webpage.

> i think setup.exe can use such a repository.

If it helps, I have been collecting versions of setup as well.  I just 
don't have an exposed list for that (yet).

> Right now i'm not sure if i have to ask for permission to do
> so given it is open source.
> Am i allowed to do this?

I think you have to say "Pretty Please with Sugar on Top!"  :-D

> best regards,
> Herbert Stocker

-- 
--=> Peter A. Castro
Email: doctor at fruitbat dot org / Peter dot Castro at oracle dot com
 	"Cats are just autistic Dogs" -- Dr. Tony Attwood

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Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine]

[Herbert Stocker]

Hi Peter,

On 11/11/2016 1:15 AM, Peter A. Castro wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Nov 2016, Herbert Stocker wrote:
>
>> Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2016 23:11:16 +0100
>> From: Herbert Stocker <hersto@gmx.de>
>> To: cygwin@cygwin.com
>> Subject: Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine]
>>
>> Hi,
>
> Greetings, Herbert,
>
>> On 10.11.2016 04:21, Andrey Gursky wrote:
>>> Regarding cygwin time machine. I can't use it, since cygwin
>>> is compiled for MSYS2. And then it is being run under Wine
>>> on GNU/Linux.
>>
>> So we have two people who have difficulty using time machine.
>>
>> i did download setup.exe and the binary packages of the last
>> version with XP support using the "Download but don't Install"
>> feature of setup.exe . (But i never tested if it's usable).
>
> I don't understand.  What difficulty did you have?  It sounds like you
> successfully downloaded (I presume) the 32-bit packages from the Time
> Machine?  What was difficult about it?  I really want to know.
> If it's just *slow*, well, yes, that's a know problem. :-/

No, i did not have any difficulty with the time machine. Simply
because i did not download from it as i was not aware whether
something like this existed, and time was short.

There was another mail where somebody indicated they had difficulty
with time machine iirc.

If there are no Problems with time machine i see no need to provide
another copy of something.
Unless you'd need a mirror.


> Also, did you pull the source packages?

No. Was too much clicking involved with setup.exe and i thought i'd
never compile these old sources anyway.

Now i know more. The great thing called open source software is not
complete if without source. It's just usable then.



best regards,
and thanks for maintaining a history of Cygwin.


Herbert

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Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine]

[cyg Simple]

On 11/11/2016 2:30 AM, Herbert Stocker wrote:
> Hi Peter,
> 
> On 11/11/2016 1:15 AM, Peter A. Castro wrote:
> 
>> Also, did you pull the source packages?
> 
> No. Was too much clicking involved with setup.exe and i thought i'd
> never compile these old sources anyway.
> 

The point of this question was because you had asked if you could
duplicate the Time Machine.  If you distribute binaries you must make
the source available as well.  Especially for GPL products like Cygwin.

-- 
cyg Simple

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Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine]

[Peter A. Castro]

On Fri, 11 Nov 2016, Herbert Stocker wrote:

> Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2016 08:30:55 +0100
> From: Herbert Stocker
> Subject: Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine]
> 
> Hi Peter,

Greetings, Herbert,

> On 11/11/2016 1:15 AM, Peter A. Castro wrote:
>> On Thu, 10 Nov 2016, Herbert Stocker wrote:
>> 
>>> Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2016 23:11:16 +0100
>>> From: Herbert Stocker
>>> Subject: Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine]
>>> 
>>> Hi,
>> 
>> Greetings, Herbert,
>> 
>>> On 10.11.2016 04:21, Andrey Gursky wrote:
>>>> Regarding cygwin time machine. I can't use it, since cygwin
>>>> is compiled for MSYS2. And then it is being run under Wine
>>>> on GNU/Linux.
>>> 
>>> So we have two people who have difficulty using time machine.
>>> 
>>> i did download setup.exe and the binary packages of the last
>>> version with XP support using the "Download but don't Install"
>>> feature of setup.exe . (But i never tested if it's usable).
>> 
>> I don't understand.  What difficulty did you have?  It sounds like you
>> successfully downloaded (I presume) the 32-bit packages from the Time
>> Machine?  What was difficult about it?  I really want to know.
>> If it's just *slow*, well, yes, that's a know problem. :-/
>
> No, i did not have any difficulty with the time machine. Simply
> because i did not download from it as i was not aware whether
> something like this existed, and time was short.

Ah.  I understand.  Well, it is available, should you need something 
from it in the future.  But it is currently "slow", I acknowledge that.
Hmm...for something called a "Time Machine" one wouldn't think it cost you 
actual "time"?  Perhaps I should rename it? :)

> There was another mail where somebody indicated they had difficulty
> with time machine iirc.

They did not really elaborate much on what the difficulty was, beyond it 
being slow, that is.

In private email, many people encounter trouble because they assume the 
Time Machine is like any other FTP site.  But, due to it's organization, I 
simply cannot support the typical (expected?) behaviour (largely browsing 
and mechanical tools to "scrape" the site).  It was only ever intended to 
be accessable via the Setup program, nothing more.  That others seem to 
insist it be accessable otherwise is not really something I care all that 
much about.  It's intended usage is quite clear.  Once people are clear on 
that, they generally have no "problems" getting what they need.  It only 
cost them "time".

> If there are no Problems with time machine i see no need to provide
> another copy of something.
> Unless you'd need a mirror.

Others have offered to be a mirror, but once I explain the organization 
and how that would be exposed, they decide otherwise.  I've stated in 
other email that I am working on an export to another service that will 
provide much better bandwidth, but, still, I will likely restrict it's 
access to Setup.  Just because additional bandwidth is available, doesn't 
mean I will allow the same kinds of abused.  Hmm... I suppose that is mean 
of me?  :)

>> Also, did you pull the source packages?
>
> No. Was too much clicking involved with setup.exe and i thought i'd
> never compile these old sources anyway.

And, again, you see that a general philosophy of Cygwin is to take only 
what you need.  Indiscriminate data hording really serves no purpose.

> Now i know more. The great thing called open source software is not
> complete if without source. It's just usable then.

That is implicit in the name: Open *Source* Software. :-)

> best regards,
> and thanks for maintaining a history of Cygwin.

Though you haven't used it (yet?), I thank you for your (future) 
patronage.  :)

> Herbert

-- 
--=> Peter A. Castro
Email: doctor at fruitbat dot org / Peter dot Castro at oracle dot com
 	"Cats are just autistic Dogs" -- Dr. Tony Attwood

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Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine]

[Andrey Gursky]

<snip>
> https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-announce/2015-08/msg00049.html

Thanks,
Andrey

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Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine]

[Andrey Gursky]

<snip>
> https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-announce/2015-08/msg00049.html

Thanks,
Andrey

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Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine],

[Corinna Vinschen]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1294 bytes --]

On Nov 10 15:19, Andrey Gursky wrote:
> > On Nov 10 04:21, Andrey Gursky wrote:
> > > On 11/9/2016 7:59 AM, Andrey Gursky wrote:
> > > > > P.S. Was it not too early to remove WinXP support? Though it is
> > > > > officially not supported anymore, there are still PCs running WinXP
> > > > > [...]
> > > > 
> > > > This has been answered.  The problem with supporting XP into infinitude
> > > > is that every application would need to agree to do the same.
> > > > [...]
> > > [...]
> > Ending XP support was announced last year and only a year later we
> > actually dropped it.  So we don't support Windows XP anymore, but we
> > *would* support Wine.  However, the problem here is not on the Cygwin
> > side.
> > 
> > It seems Cygwin under Wine was not tested outside of XP compatibility
> > mode, or Wine doesn't support certain post-XP functions albeit claiming
> > Vista caompatibility.  Cygwin doesn't require any functionality which
> > isn't available in Vista.
> 
> Corinna,
> 
> sorry, I missed that early announce. Is there any link?

https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-announce/2015-08/msg00049.html


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Maintainer                 cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat

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Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine],

[Andrey Gursky]

> On Nov 10 04:21, Andrey Gursky wrote:
> > Hi cyg Simple,
> > 
> > On 11/9/2016 7:59 AM, Andrey Gursky wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > P.S. Was it not too early to remove WinXP support? Though it is
> > > > officially not supported anymore, there are still PCs running WinXP
> > > > (and Wine). Also there are still systems, I've heard, using some
> > > > embedded Windows, that shares the same code with WinXP, thus making it
> > > > not yet truly obsolete. Additionally a lot of work has been done by
> > > > Cygwin contributors to support this OS and I believe the most of bugs
> > > > have been workarounded, while due to stopped development it is not
> > > > likely one has to spend time solving new problems. So was it really
> > > > worth to drop the hardly crafted code? Are there already some
> > > > worthwhile advantages? Why wasn't it possible to switch Cygwin WinXP
> > > > support to just "not officially supported"? (kindly asking)
> > > 
> > > This has been answered.  The problem with supporting XP into infinitude
> > > is that every application would need to agree to do the same.
> > > Improvements to the OS API would not be able to be used so there are
> > > trade-offs for the continued support of an OS that is no longer
> > > supported.  The code becomes unwieldy to maintain because a change needs
> > > to be tested on other systems.  Security maintenance becomes impossible
> > > because the OS vendor no longer supports the older OS.  There is the
> > > cygwin time machine, USE IT if you need old software for old OS.
> > 
> > Thanks for your reply (however I haven't received it, because you
> > likely didn't click on "reply all"?).
> > 
> > Do you refer to the recent message [1]?
> > 
> > Regarding cygwin time machine. I can't use it, since cygwin is compiled
> > for MSYS2. And then it is being run under Wine on GNU/Linux. While
> > WinXP is still not dead, Wine is definitively not an old OS. It's just
> > an active project doing WinAPI implementation from scratch according to
> > documentation. Thus I hope Cygwin developers could talk directly to
> > Wine ones to find the minimum needed changes in both projects.
> 
> Ending XP support was announced last year and only a year later we
> actually dropped it.  So we don't support Windows XP anymore, but we
> *would* support Wine.  However, the problem here is not on the Cygwin
> side.
> 
> It seems Cygwin under Wine was not tested outside of XP compatibility
> mode, or Wine doesn't support certain post-XP functions albeit claiming
> Vista caompatibility.  Cygwin doesn't require any functionality which
> isn't available in Vista.

Corinna,

sorry, I missed that early announce. Is there any link? Since I'm aware
only of almost "last minute" MSYS2 mail [1] referring to your recent
announce.

If I understood you correctly, previously discussed changes in Cygwin
itself are not considered anymore and from now Wine is really left
alone with this issue?

Regards,
Andrey

[1] Announcement: msys2-runtime 2.5.1 -- last version to support XP/2003
    30. June 2016
    https://sourceforge.net/p/msys2/mailman/message/35191999/

P.S. I didn't receive your message also. Does Cygwin mailing list
program strips my E-Mail address (though I see it in the archive)?
(And it even can't guess a possibly follow-up :( )

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Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine],

[Andrey Gursky]

> On Nov 10 04:21, Andrey Gursky wrote:
> > Hi cyg Simple,
> > 
> > On 11/9/2016 7:59 AM, Andrey Gursky wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > P.S. Was it not too early to remove WinXP support? Though it is
> > > > officially not supported anymore, there are still PCs running WinXP
> > > > (and Wine). Also there are still systems, I've heard, using some
> > > > embedded Windows, that shares the same code with WinXP, thus making it
> > > > not yet truly obsolete. Additionally a lot of work has been done by
> > > > Cygwin contributors to support this OS and I believe the most of bugs
> > > > have been workarounded, while due to stopped development it is not
> > > > likely one has to spend time solving new problems. So was it really
> > > > worth to drop the hardly crafted code? Are there already some
> > > > worthwhile advantages? Why wasn't it possible to switch Cygwin WinXP
> > > > support to just "not officially supported"? (kindly asking)
> > > 
> > > This has been answered.  The problem with supporting XP into infinitude
> > > is that every application would need to agree to do the same.
> > > Improvements to the OS API would not be able to be used so there are
> > > trade-offs for the continued support of an OS that is no longer
> > > supported.  The code becomes unwieldy to maintain because a change needs
> > > to be tested on other systems.  Security maintenance becomes impossible
> > > because the OS vendor no longer supports the older OS.  There is the
> > > cygwin time machine, USE IT if you need old software for old OS.
> > 
> > Thanks for your reply (however I haven't received it, because you
> > likely didn't click on "reply all"?).
> > 
> > Do you refer to the recent message [1]?
> > 
> > Regarding cygwin time machine. I can't use it, since cygwin is compiled
> > for MSYS2. And then it is being run under Wine on GNU/Linux. While
> > WinXP is still not dead, Wine is definitively not an old OS. It's just
> > an active project doing WinAPI implementation from scratch according to
> > documentation. Thus I hope Cygwin developers could talk directly to
> > Wine ones to find the minimum needed changes in both projects.
> 
> Ending XP support was announced last year and only a year later we
> actually dropped it.  So we don't support Windows XP anymore, but we
> *would* support Wine.  However, the problem here is not on the Cygwin
> side.
> 
> It seems Cygwin under Wine was not tested outside of XP compatibility
> mode, or Wine doesn't support certain post-XP functions albeit claiming
> Vista caompatibility.  Cygwin doesn't require any functionality which
> isn't available in Vista.

Corinna,

sorry, I missed that early announce. Is there any link? Since I'm aware
only of almost "last minute" MSYS2 mail [1] referring to your recent
announce.

If I understood you correctly, previously discussed changes in Cygwin
itself are not considered anymore and from now Wine is really left
alone with this issue?

Regards,
Andrey

[1] Announcement: msys2-runtime 2.5.1 -- last version to support XP/2003
    30. June 2016
    https://sourceforge.net/p/msys2/mailman/message/35191999/

P.S. I didn't receive your message also. Does Cygwin mailing list
program strips my E-Mail address (though I see it in the archive)?
(And it even can't guess a possibly follow-up :( )

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Re: WinXP is dead [WAS: 2.6.x: broken compatibility with Wine]

[cyg Simple]

On 11/9/2016 7:59 AM, Andrey Gursky wrote:
> 
> P.S. Was it not too early to remove WinXP support? Though it is
> officially not supported anymore, there are still PCs running WinXP
> (and Wine). Also there are still systems, I've heard, using some
> embedded Windows, that shares the same code with WinXP, thus making it
> not yet truly obsolete. Additionally a lot of work has been done by
> Cygwin contributors to support this OS and I believe the most of bugs
> have been workarounded, while due to stopped development it is not
> likely one has to spend time solving new problems. So was it really
> worth to drop the hardly crafted code? Are there already some
> worthwhile advantages? Why wasn't it possible to switch Cygwin WinXP
> support to just "not officially supported"? (kindly asking)
> 

This has been answered.  The problem with supporting XP into infinitude
is that every application would need to agree to do the same.
Improvements to the OS API would not be able to be used so there are
trade-offs for the continued support of an OS that is no longer
supported.  The code becomes unwieldy to maintain because a change needs
to be tested on other systems.  Security maintenance becomes impossible
because the OS vendor no longer supports the older OS.  There is the
cygwin time machine, USE IT if you need old software for old OS.

-- 
cyg Simple

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