Understanding Cygwin /etc/passwd and /etc/group on W98

[Steve Jorgensen <jorgens at coho dot net>]

On Windows 98, I'm curious why /etc/group looks like an exact copy of 
/etc/passwd.  they both look like this:

Syhome::500:544::/home/Syhome:/bin/bash

Shouldn't /etc/group contain an entry for a group with GID of 544 to match 
the default GID for UID 500 rather than a copy of the passwd file?  FWIU, 
when looked at as passwd entry, this refers to a user with UID 500 and 
default group GID 544, but as a group entry, this defines a group with GID 
500 having a single member UID 544.  Since there is neither a UID of 544 or 
a GID of 500, these files don't look compatible.

I see that if I run mkgroup, I get an entry that looks valid:
unknown::544:

but I thought setup created /etc/group by running mkgroup, so why isn't 
that what /etc/group already contains?

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