This articleneeds additional citations forverification.(September 2014) |
Cygnus Solutions,originallyCygnus Support,was founded in 1989 byJohn Gilmore,Michael Tiemannand David Henkel-Wallace to provide commercial support forfree software.Its tagline was:Making free software affordable.
 | |
| Industry | Computer software |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1989 |
| Founder | David Henkel-Wallace |
| Defunct | 2000 |
| Fate | Merged withRed Hat |
| Successor | Red Hat |
Key people | John Gilmore,Michael Tiemann,and David Henkel-Wallace |
| Products | Compilers, debuggers, development tools,eCos,Cygwin |
For years, employees of Cygnus Solutions were the maintainers of several keyGNUsoftware products, including theGNU DebuggerandGNU Binutils(which included theGNU AssemblerandLinker). It was also a major contributor to theGCCproject and drove the change in the project's management from having a single gatekeeper to having an independent committee. Cygnus developedBFD,and used it to help port GNU to many architectures, in a number of cases working undernon-disclosureto produce tools used for initial bringup ofsoftwarefor a new chip design.
Cygnus was also the original developer ofCygwin,aPOSIXlayer and theGNUtoolkit port to theMicrosoft Windowsoperating systemfamily, and ofeCos,an embeddedreal-time operating system.[1]
In the 2001 documentary filmRevolution OS,Tiemann indicates that the name "Cygnus" was chosen from among several names that incorporated the acronym "GNU" such as "magnum", "wingnut", and "lugnut". According toStan Kelly-Bootle,it was recursively defined asCygnus, your GNU Support.[2]
On November 15, 1999, Cygnus Solutions announced its merger withRed Hat,and it ceased to exist as a separate company in early 2000.[3]As of 2007[update],a number of Cygnus employees continue to work for Red Hat, including Tiemann, who serves as Red Hat's Vice President of Open Source Affairs, and formerly served asCTO.[needs update]
References
edit- ^"A brief history of the Cygwin project".www.cygwin.com.Archivedfrom the original on 2021-05-08.Retrieved2021-04-14.
- ^Binstock, Andrew (2014-04-22)."Farewell, Devil's Advocate".Dr. Dobb's Journal.Archived fromthe originalon 2016-03-04.Retrieved2019-08-18.(NB. The article refers to and cites fromStan Kelly-Bootle's original article "FAQs of Life" in the "Devil's Advocate" column ofUNIX Review,July 1994, where CYGNUS is recursively defined as "Cygnus, your GNU Support".)
- ^"Red Hat To Acquire Cygnus and Create Global Open Source Powerhouse".Red Hat.November 15, 1999.Archivedfrom the original on 2017-02-23.Retrieved2019-08-18.
External links
edit- Tiemann, Michael(January 1999), "Future of Cygnus Solutions — An Entrepreneur's Account",Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution.
- "Marketing Cygnus Support",Free Software history,Toad, September 27, 2006.