Q1: What was the hardest aspect of producing the GNUWin II CD? Was it selecting the software? Was it making sure the software worked okay (ie, were there any major portings issues, and if so, how much work did you have to do vs. how much did the developer do). Was it something else entirely?
Also, what criteria did you use to select the software? Did you consider which applications had a UI that Windows users would find more comfortable? Did you consider any programs that you weren't able to get running under Windows?
BTW, best of luck with the project. My father has been using the Win32 port of the GIMP for about two years now and loves it! As I type, he's (ab)using his work's net connection to d/l the ISOs.

A1: First of all, thank you for your encouragement !
The first thing was to write the software that generates all the pages and manages the database; Ivo did a remarkable job, and he kept adding new features during the development of GNUWin. Selecting the software was quite difficult, since we wanted everything to fit on one CD. People tend to suggest lots of redundant software, and we had to take arbitrary decisions, which is never an enjoyable thing to do. Also, GNUWin was originally in French, and it was quite an effort to get it translated into German, Italian and English. However, we then had the pleasant surprise to see that people then joined the team to make other translations -- I'd like to take this opportunity to thank them for their hard work. The last, and somewhat paradoxical point, is this: the original GNUWin team is made up mostly of Linux enthusiasts, who don't use Windows at all; this slows the testing process a great deal. This is the reason why we rely a lot on contributors to test applications.
We selected applications that met criteria of ease of use; similarity with proprietary software, so that the "alternative solution" point could be stressed; usefulness; and also existence of a Linux version. And of course, licensing !
Before a program gets onto the public version of GNUWin it has to be run by a member of GNUWin and "certified" easy to install and use. We even built auto-installers ourselves when the original team doesn't provide it themselves.
We wish you and your father lots of fun with Free Software !

Q2: What makes your work different from competing projects?
Could you describe in detail your relationship with your host university? I currently am a student at a university with strong economic ties to Microsoft. Within a university setting, what strategies do you recommend for increasing awareness of the benefits of open source software?

A2: Our project features a massively multi-lingual interface; it provides more software than other similar projects; and the targeted audience ranges from the average office user to science students, giving the software a wide spectrum of possible use.
Our university is the EPFL, Swiss Insitute of Technology. GNUWin is one of the mostly visible activities of GNU Generation, the Linux User Group of the EPFL. GNU Generation is an official association of the EPFL, and thus has support such as use of classrooms for our meetings; GNUWin itself obtained financial backing for pressing 1000 CDs to be given away to students and EPFL members.
How can you increase awareness of Free Software in your university ? We'd recommend that you team up with a few motivated and dedicated friends and found a LUG. Organise Install-Parties, courses about how to use Free Software (for instance, we are preparing courses about The GIMP, LaTeX, tcsh,...); try to be as visible as possible during your university events (organise stands at festivities). Advertise your events. If your school has an internal newspaper, you might want to write articles about "flagship Free software" (Open Office, GIMP and Mozilla are always a good starting point. If you're in a scientific school, you can move on to Maxima and Octave). You can even organise conferences with famous Free Software or open source participants.
In any case, we wish you the best possible luck !

Q3: Do you have, or would you consider adding, a voluntary popularity rating system for the programs on your CD? I'm thinking of the likes of the debian popularity-contest which tracks which programs are installed (and how often they're used I think) to decide what programs should be included on which CD of their release. It would also help for the Linux (BSD, any other FreeOS you care to name) community as they could see which programs Windows people like and therefore can help most in bringing them across from Win to Lin.

A3: We have an internal review system that allows GNUWin contributors to give grades to applications. It helps determine which applications get to be higher in the lists, or which applications get dropped when we want to build ISOs.
The idea of involving the community and the users seems a very good one. We will consider a system that allows users to express their opinion in the most convenient possible way.

Q4: I installed Cygwin and love it, but I couldn't get xfree86 running (I have Windows 2000) - there was some sort of socket incompatibility on startup. I tried running one of the desktops (gnome?) using a commerical xwindows driver instead of xfree86, but it wouldn't come up either - though I could run some simple/desktop-free xwindows programs. Has GnuWin II made any of this easier? Does it contain xfree86? Will it run any of the xwindows desktops?

A4: For now, the only simple way to obtain a Free X server on Windows seems to be to use Cygwin. Except for the bare installer, we do not include Cygwin in GNUWin, because it is a different concept: Cygwin provides a UNIX layer upon a Windows kernel and Win32 API, while GNUWIn provides native Win32 applications.
However, GNUWin does include alternative desktops for Windows, most notably LiteStep, which provides a fast and elegant multi-desktop environment.

Q5: I am not sure all the software in GNU WIN II is Free software as defined by the Free Software foundation.
This might be an issue since it leads the user to believe that all of those are Free.
If the team is ready to answer questions, I would like this one to be answered.

A5: GNUWin includes Free and open source software. The requirements for software to be acceptable in GNUWin are that the software be freely redistributable, freely useable (no commercial or military restrictions, for instance), the source code be available and the source code be freely redistributable.
We do not require modified source code to be freely redistributable. This is an arbitrary choice, mainly set up so that projects like PovRay could find their place in GNUWin too. The idea is that if the developers are ready to listen to your comments and accept patches, there is little effective difference between GPL software and PovRay-type software.
Besides, the GNUWin team uses the GPL for its creation, and recommends the GPL be used for open source projects.

Q6: Isn't writing GPLed software for a closed, proprietary OS somehow counter to the GNU principles? How can you justify it ethically?

A6: Most software included in GNUWin is not written specifically for Windows, but rather ported to it.
Anyway, writing Free Software for proprietary Operating Systems does not counter GNU, since GNU itself began by providing UNIX tools, such as Emacs, which originally ran on proprietary versions of UNIX.

Q7: Most of the software on that CD has nothing to do with GNU or the Free Software Foundation.
The FSF would be perfectly within their rights to demand that the name be changed. I think it would be courteous of the GNUWin team to change their name first.

A7: GNUWin got this name because it is produced by the GNU Generation team (which itself was named after the famous motto : "Linux, the choice of a GNU Generation").
It is however remarkable that some other projects include the name "GNU" without actually being part of the GNU project. For instance, GNUPlot is not GNU software (it's not even GPL'ed).
If the FSF expresses concerns about the name of GNUWin, we will be happy to oblige.

Q8: GNU/FSF is run by RMS who feels that the world should be Free, but GNU now wants to support the windows platform officially? If you can run these popular tools on windows will RMS be emailing windows and telling them to rename Windows GNU/Windows?

A8: The GNUWin project has nothing to do with the FSF and Richard Stallman, and the existence of the GNUWin project does not in any way imply any intention of the FSF toward Windows.
The GNU/Linux name can be justified by the fact that Linux relies massively on GNU components to provide a useable system. This is not the case of Windows, which does not include GNU components (it uses BSD components, but that's another story). Even though it is possible to run GNU software on Windows, the system doesn't require you to do so, and thus GNU/Windows would not be justified (but funny, though).
As far as we know, the attitude of the FSF is to ignore Windows. The hope of the GNUWin team is that within two or three years, the GNUWin project be obsolete and useless, as more and more people will use Free operating systems. Even if our starting point is not the same, our views converge.