On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 1:41 PM, Adrien <camaradetux@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> Can I ask what the motivation is for this (out of interest, not
>>> criticism)?
>>
>> Maybe because if you want to distribute executables using cygwin you
>> have to release your code under a GPL compatible license [1].
>>
>> Daniel
>>
>> [1] http://caml.inria.fr/pub/distrib/ocaml-3.10/notes/README.win32
>
> I would give another explanation : cygwin is big and slow.
> A base cygwin install is at least 1GB (when fully configured, after
> carefully reviewing *each* package), a regular one is 2GB. XP itself
> is not that big, I've not seen many applications that big, only CAD
> ones.

No way. My Cygwin installation (quite enough for building Ocaml and
many other things) is just 274Mb. Not a big deal.

> Cygwin is also slow, though it will probably not impact a student use
> (networking is slower due to the translation, I have mldonkey in
> mind).

What exactly is slow when building Ocaml? make? Can you prove that?

> ./configure are also painfully slow, the need to run several
> small commands where startup time is more important than runtime gives
> cygwin no chance [1].

Where did you find any ./configure script used for building the native
Win32 Ocaml?

- Dmitry Bely