What is Cygwin? Wikipedia says: “Cygwin is a Unix-like environment and command-line interface for Microsoft Windows.”

Wikipedia goes on to say: “Cygwin provides native integration of Windows-based applications, data, and other system resources with applications, software tools, and data of the Unix-like environment. Thus it is possible to launch Windows applications from the Cygwin environment, as well as to use Cygwin tools and applications within the Windows operating context.”

Wikipedia then continues on to say: “Cygwin consists of two parts: a dynamic-link library (DLL) as an API compatibility layer in the form of a C standard library providing a substantial part of the POSIX API functionality, and an extensive collection of software tools and applications that provide a Unix-like look and feel. Cygwin was originally developed by Cygnus Solutions, which was later acquired by Red Hat. It is free and open source software, released under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3. Today it is maintained by employees of Red Hat, NetApp and many other volunteers.”