-----Original Message-----
From: John Darrington <john@darrington.wattle.id.au>
To: Oren Ish-Shalom <tuna.is.good.for.you@gmail.com>
Cc: someone <maffydoit@aol.com>; john@darrington.wattle.id.au <john@darrington.wattle.id.au>; public.ftr@gmail.com <public.ftr@gmail.com>; pspp-users@gnu.org <pspp-users@gnu.org>
Sent: Thu, Jun 16, 2022 4:40 pm
Subject: Re: pspp-1.6.0 released, 1.6 windows
PSPP is part of the GNU project, and the primary purpose of the GNU project is to provide a 100% free operating system. From that point of view, Windows binaries are *irrelevant*. Source code is always more important that binaries because you can produce a binary from the source code, but the reverse is not possible.
Having said that, however, it is common for GNU programs to be built to operate on non-free systems (such as windows). There is no reason why people shouldn't help do that task, because it makes a Windows (a non-free system) slightly less non-free. But the GNU project's take on such argument is that "slightly non-free" is like saying "slightly pregnant". A system is either free or it is not.
So if you wish to help provide binaries for a non-free system you are welcome to do so, and we can and do provide links to those binaries in case people want to use them. Emphasis however will always be in the order:
1. GNU/Linux
2. Other free systems.
3. Non-free systems.
J'
On Thu, Jun 16, 2022 at 07:38:59AM +0300, Oren Ish-Shalom wrote:
It seems that a bird's eye view of the problem is:
- many pspp *windows users*
- pspp windows users will have a *hard time building pspp from source*
- for those users, the *source distributions* are (in many ways)
*irrelevant*
- for those users, the only (?) way to go is a *windows installer*
I will be *happy to help* improving windows user installations
- I am an experienced linux developer
- how can I help?