diff -BurN --exclude=*.pyc distutils/distutils/ccompiler.py
distutils.patched/distutils/ccompiler.py
--- distutils/distutils/ccompiler.py    Mon Feb 19 09:20:04 2001
+++ distutils.patched/distutils/ccompiler.py    Thu Feb 22 14:51:01 2001
@@ -842,7 +842,9 @@
 _default_compilers = (

     # Platform string mappings
-    ('cygwin.*', 'cygwin'),
+
+    # on a cygwin built python we can use gcc like an ordinary UNIXish
compiler
+    ('cygwin.*', 'unix'),

     # OS name mappings
     ('posix', 'unix'),