Re: emacs too big for knoppix?

[jsbien@mimuw.edu.pl (Janusz S. Bień)]

On 06 May 2003  David.Kastrup@t-online.de (David Kastrup) wrote:

> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

[...]

> > This may be true in some cases, but "installing a Debian system" is
> > not a well-defined destination.  Debian distributes non-free
> > packages as well as free ones.  Using Knoppix as it stands may be a
> > road to installing Debian with non-free packages and leaving it that
> > way.
> 
> So is the Internet.  Should we discourage getting Emacs via the
> Internet since one could install non-free packages that way, too?

Congratulation, David - this is an extremely good argument.

> 
> I'd love to add something akin to not being more papist than the pope,
> but it would be sort of tautological.
> 
> Anyhow, I don't know the Debian package system, but if I remember
> correctly, it does make it obvious which packages are free and which
> are unfree, and so the choice is for the user to make.  

Exactly. You decide to install non-free packages on a package by
package basis. At any moment you can review your installation and the
non-free packages are clearly separated.

> Freedom
> includes the user's freedom to install non-free software, and our
> freedom to pester^W educate him about it.  As long as we are dealing
> with informed choices, I guess that is more or less the extent of what
> one can and should do.

I fully support you.

BTW, the really radical approach would involve emigrating from a
country where law allows software patents, but the choice of
destination may become very limited :-(.

Regards to everybody

Janusz

-- 
                     ,   
dr hab. Janusz S. Bien, prof. UW
Prof. Janusz S. Bien, Warsaw Uniwersity
http://www.orient.uw.edu.pl/~jsbien/