“It’s not unusual to hear people talk about “religious wars”
taking place among operating systems. Nowhere are the opposing
factions more sanctimonious than in the Linux and Windows camps.
The rivalry began as isolated skirmishes in the mid-1990s and
escalated to all-out war when Windows Server 2008 and later Windows
7 were released.“It’s time now for negotiations. Not a truce, mind you, just
some middle ground where we can meet and decide on a kinder,
gentler cooperative strategy going forward.“Cygwin provides the impetus for those negotiations. Cygwin is a
software project, owned by Red Hat, that provides Linux-like tools
for Windows. Installing Cygwin gives Linux adopters the tools they
want to make Windows work better. For Windows folk, it’s a gigabyte
of wasted space.“Cygwin software categories include Shells, X11, System Tools,
Mail, Admin, Net, Base, Development, Libs, Utils and
Databases.”