Re: emacs too big for knoppix?

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

jsbien@mimuw.edu.pl (Janusz S. Bień) writes:

> 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.

Silence from the sidelines.  I am trying to pacify the raging Gnu, not
annoy it.

> > 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.

That's why I am not bothered about Knoppix: I feel that for serious
work you'll have to make the step to getting more from Debian, and
then at the latest the exposure to the free/nonfree distinction
becomes inavoidable.  Considering that Knoppix is most often employed
for getting a first GNU/Linux experience on Windows-only systems, I
think that the first step in the right direction will quite often not
remain the last.

> > 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.

Oh, but we were just having a friendly domestic quarrel here.
Certainly about matters of principle, but you would not have seen us
drawing a bush-knife over that.

At least that's what I hope.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum