Is there a mailing list for the project?

Yes. There are several. They are listed below.

However, please check out the FAQ, the documentation, and the problem reporting guidelines before sending email to a mailing list.

That depends. Have you adequately researched your question already? Cygwin is not a new project. It has been around for many years. That means that almost any question that you are burning to ask has probably already been asked. Almost every observation that you can make has probably been made. Almost every suggestion for improvement that you can think of has probably been suggested.

So, rather than send YA "same old" observation to one of the mailing lists below, and possibly be flamed as a result, you owe it to yourself to do some background research before posting.

Places to check for information would be the Cygwin FAQ, the Cygwin documentation, the web, and the mailing list archives (click on a mailing list name below to search the archive). Using one of these methods, it's likely that you'll be able to find the answers that you seek without sending email to thousands of people and you'll have the satisfaction of having gained valuable research skills.

This may seem like we're discouraging questions. Well, you are right. We are discouraging repeat questions. The Cygwin mailing list is a high volume list. Every question you send there will potentially be read by thousands of people. Many people will sigh and shake their heads when they see the same old question asked for the hundredth time. Is this how you want to introduce yourself to the Cygwin community? We think not.

Now that we've discouraged you, let us say that despite the fact that there is an incredible number of messages going to the Cygwin mailing lists, there are still a lot of friendly folk who will probably try to answer your "newbie" (shudder) questions. However, if you are going to ask a question, you owe it to yourself and your new acquaintances to ask an intelligent question. No one is "on staff" waiting for your email so no one needs to respond to clueless, vague, content-free, or repetitive queries or observations. This means that if you want to receive help you need to present yourself in such a fashion that people will want to help you. So, think thrice, post once -- and when you post make sure that you have also looked at the problem reporting guidelines so that you will be sure to provide all of the information needed to debug your problem.

Finally, make sure when you send a message to a Cygwin list that it actually has something to do with Cygwin. What do we mean by that? Well, if you can't install the Cygwin C compiler, then that has something to do with Cygwin. If you don't know C very well and need some pointers on writing a program, that really has nothing to do with Cygwin. If you are trying to run the Cygwin version of bash (the standard UNIX shell) and it hangs, then that's probably a Cygwin problem. If you can't figure out how to set up a command alias in bash, that's not a Cygwin question. These Cygwin questions are considered "on topic". The non-Cygwin questions are considered "off topic".

Why do we make this distinction? For two reasons: 1) as mentioned, the email traffic is very high so, by keeping things "on topic" we can cut down on some list traffic and 2) there are usually much better places on the Internet where you can get definitive answers for your off-topic-for-Cygwin question. It doesn't make sense to ask non-experts to teach you about C or bash.

Unfortunately, we can't tell you exactly where to go with your non-Cygwin questions. Google is a wonderful resource for finding things on the web, though. It's likely that a few well-chosen search terms will uncover scads of information.

'Nuff said.

Notes

Cygwin Mailing Lists

• cygwin: a high volume list for discussion of just about all things related to the Cygwin community release. If you have questions about how to use Cygwin, or if you have Cygwin-specific (see above) questions, bugs, or observations about the UNIX tools (bash, gcc, make, etc.) that come with Cygwin, this is the list for you (although it's very possible that you will receive more qualified help for such tools on their specific non-Cygwin mailing lists). There are a few exceptions to the "all things Cygwin" nature of this list:
  • Questions about the Cygwin/X project (or any X-related questions for Cygwin) should go to the cygwin-xfree mailing list (see below).
  • Patches for the Cygwin DLL should go to the cygwin-patches mailing list (see below).
  • New package submissions should go to the cygwin-apps mailing list (see below).
  • Questions about Cygwin licensing, copyright, and GPL issues should go to the moderated cygwin-licensing list (see below).
  • Questions about other Cygwin releases not downloaded from http://cygwin.com/ or its mirrors are strongly discouraged. In theory, there should be better forums for discussing this kind of unsponsored software than the Cygwin mailing list.

    This caveat applies to all of the mailing lists at this site.

• cygwin-licensing: a low volume, moderated list set up to provide answers and limited discussion about Cygwin licensing. Please ask questions here if you are unclear about Red Hat licensing or Cygwin's standard GPL licensing. The GPL FAQ and the Cygwin Licensing Page are mandatory reading before posting here. First time posters should indicate that they have read both of these before sending a question or risk having their message rejected.

• cygwin-talk: a mindless chatter list for discussing things that are tangentially related to Cygwin. This list is intended to be funny but not terribly helpful. Do not send technical questions about Cygwin here. Use the main Cygwin mailing list for serious Cygwin questions since responses to technical questions in this list are not guaranteed to be serious or definitive. No profanity, no commercial posts, and minimal flaming, please.
• cygwin-xfree: a list for discussion of all things related to the version X on Cygwin (Cygwin/X) which is distributed from the Cygwin site. If you have questions about how to use, configure, install, build, or develop with Cygwin/X, this is the list for you. If you have general questions about using Cygwin/X, please see the Cygwin/X User's Guide or the Cygwin/X FAQ.

• cygwin-announce: a moderated announcement list solely for announcements related to the official Cygwin release. Announcements sent to cygwin-anounce are automatically sent to the Cygwin mailing list so there is no reason to subscribe to both mailing lists if your only intent is to be up-to-date on new package releases.

• cygwin-xfree-announce: a moderated announcement list for those folks who want to avoid all the traffic. This list is for announcements related to the official Cygwin/X release.
  

• cygwin-apps: a subscriber-only list for discussing packaging issues regarding applications that are distributed with the Cygwin DLL. If you are maintaining or volunteering to maintain one of the packages that is distributed with the Cygwin net releases you should be subscribed to this list. This list is intended for discussing solutions. It is not (with one exception) for bug reports, "it would be nice", or "how do I" type of musings. Do not subsccribe to this mailing list to ask questions about packages. Use the main Cygwin mailing list for that.

  Here's the one exception: This mailing list is the preferred location for design discussions of Cygwin's setup.exe program.

• cygwin-patches: a list for submitting patches to the Cygwin DLL and the other components of the "winsup" directory (if you aren't sure what this means, then you shouldn't be sending email here). Discussions of supplied patches are also acceptable, of course. Only subscribers may submit email to this list.

• cygwin-developers: a subscribers-only list for discussing the internals of the Cygwin DLL and all components of the "winsup" directory. Discussions of upcoming net releases are also appropriate. Please do not subscribe or send email to this list if you do not understand what is meant by "the winsup directory". If you are interested in contributing to the development of Cygwin, this is the place to discuss your plans.

  Note that this is not a place to send bug reports or questions about utilities like ssh, cron, etc. Please use the main Cygwin list for these types of questions. If you have an issue and hope that someone will look into it for you then please do not send email here. This is a mailing list for doers not musers.

• cygwin-cvs: a read-only list which receives log messages for every CVS commit in the 'winsup' directory. If you don't know what this means then you probably shouldn't subscribe. Messages consist of a log message and pointers to diffs of the changes.

• cygwin-apps-cvs: a list which receives log messages for every CVS commit in the 'cygwin-apps' repository. If you don't know what this means then you probably shouldn't subscribe. Messages consist of a log message and pointers to diffs of the changes.

Clicking on any of the above mailing list links will take you to the mailing list archives.

Mail sent to themailinglistname@cygwin.com will go to the list.

If you have any questions or problems with the mailing lists, see the Sourceware mailing list FAQs.

Before you send any mail to one of these lists, you need to read the relevant Cygwin documentation, especially the Cygwin FAQ, and the mailing list archives so that you don't ask a question that someone has already asked or report a bug that has aleady been reported.

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