Re: Version 1.8.1 does not compile on Cygwin 1.7.14

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

"Jason Pyeron" <jpyeron@pdinc.us> writes:

[administrivia: please never cull CC list when you respond to a
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>> circumvent the Cygwin API (and by extension, Cygwin project goals).
>> 
>> So, perhaps a better path forward is to disable / remove the 
>> above code by default. (Those wanting a native Win32 git 
>> should just use the native
>> Win32 git).
>
> Or a make option...

It already is a runtime option, isn't it?

I do not have much stake in this personally, but IIRC, the (l)stat
workaround was back then found to make Cygwin version from "unusably
slow" to "slow but torelable", as our POSIX-y codebase assumes that
lstat is fairly efficient, which Cygwin cannot satisify because it
has call many win32 calls to collect bits that we do not even look
at, in order to give faithful emulation.  It does place extra
maintenance burden (e.g. conditional compilation depending on the
header file the particular version of Cygwin installation the user
has at hand) on us, but as long as it works, the ugly hack is fairly
isolated and I do not see a reason to unconditionally rip it out,
especially if the reasoning behind such move is on "All programs
that run in Cygwin environment has to be POSIX only and must not use
Win32 API directly, even in a controlled way."

It is a completely different matter if the direct win32 calls we
make, bypassing (l)stat emulation, somehow change the internal state
of win32 resources Cygwin controls and violates the invariants
Cygwin API implemenation expects, breaking later calls to it.  I
do not know that is the case here, but I doubt it.