[tex-live] Problem with pax.win32

[Philip Taylor]

Robin Fairbairns wrote:

>> Could the installer not ask "Is this is personal, academic, commercial
>> or other installation ?", and proceed accordingly ?
>
> and if you answer "commercial", it would ... what?
>
> (obvious answer: "ha ha ... i can't carry on".)

Equally obvious answer : "In that case, Active Perl will not
be installed; if you require Active Perl (or any other Perl
implementation), you will need to download and install it
as a separate exercise".

> when we were first discussing sebastian's project in the uk tug
> committee, we all agreed that [what became] tex live should only offer
> free software.  were you not on the committee back then? -- in my
> recollection you were.

If you can remember those halcyon days, Robin, you are a better
man than I.  But it seems hardly possible that such a staunch
Windows advocate as myself could have allowed such a policy to
be formulated at a meeting at which he was present without asking
that the minutes record his dissent at what had been agreed.

> we're only discussing the present-day descendant of that policy, here.

That may well be the case, but I still find it disturbing that what
does (or does not) go into a distribution is not a purely technical
decision but is, rather, politically motivated.  "Racism" is an
ugly word (and an ugly concept) these days (well, it was always
an ugly concept), but "Non-free-software-ism" still somehow manages
to avoid any accusation of being non-PC.

** Phil.