To minimize duplication of logic. If there are two implementations of something that must be maintained in parallel, then they're likely to get out of sync. All the more so if testing them requires different operating systems.
Yeah... that was it :)
Personally, I always use cygwin when developing on Windows. I use it for shell, ssh, svn, X, etc. So, for me, cygwin is no burden.
I must agree with Andrzej that sometimes CygWin is a burden... Even though I like and use it a lot. I also understand that Nutch is a specific type of application and that users may be requested to do a little more then just download it, but still... I like having support for Windows shell scripts anyway.
Anyway, I posted a build.xml patch that converts all execs to plain ANT tasks to Andrzej.
Thanks for the response, Dawid
