Re: Removal of support for GCC hosted on UWIN

[Chris Faylor <cgf at redhat dot com>]

On Wed, Jan 10, 2001 at 10:43:19AM -0500, dewar@gnat.com wrote:
><<Ditto Interix, IMO.
>>>
>
>I strongly disagree, Interix is entirely equivalent to Win32 from a logical
>point of view, it is one of the alternative subsystems offered for use
>with the NT kernel. When using NT, the operating system consists of
>the kernel + a subsystem of your choice. Microsoft offers two possible
>subsystems, Win32, and Interix. The combination of the NT kernel and
>Interix provides a typical Unix like operating system. In no sense
>is Interix a separate unit operating on top of Win32.
>
>Part of the confusion here is that when people say NT, they usually
>mean the combination of the NT kernel + the Win32 subsystem. If this
>is your meaning when you use the term NT, then Interix is NOT a library
>that runs under NT, it is an operating system in all the normal uses
>of the term.

Hopefully, I'm not confused about what people mean by NT since I have to
understand it fairly well to do my job.  IMO, Interix is an add-on to
the Windows NT operating system which provides full POSIX support.  It
is a proprietary package relying on Windows NT internals to do its job.
It certainly is a subsystem but it is also an additional package provided
by Microsoft in addition to Windows NT.

I guess the fact that the "OS supplier" itself is now providing Interix
as an add-on might be a mitigating factor.  However, if Interix was not
supplied by Microsoft, there would be no doubt, IMO, that this was a
proprietary package.

I've never purchased Interix from Microsoft, so maybe I'm wrong, but I
don't believe that Microsoft markets this POSIX library as anything but
an add-on to Windows NT.  Here's the marketing blurb:

"Microsoft® Interix 2.2 is the easiest way for customers to take
advantage of their previous investments in UNIX-based legacy
applications as they move to the Windows® operating system.  Interix
provides a powerful, high-performance environment in which to easily run
UNIX applications and scripts on the Window NT® and Windows 2000
operating systems, enabling customers to take advantage of the many
benefits of the Windows platform while still maintaining their
UNIX-based legacy applications."

But, in any event, I don't really have that strong an opinion on the
matter.  Donn Terry from Interix has contributed code to gcc/bfd (much
of it actually helps Cygwin), so, at the very least, Interix has given
something back to the community.  I'm not aware of any such activity by
whomever owns U/WIN these days.

cgf