[tex-live] Problem with pax.win32

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2014-03-30 at 21:47:51 +0100, Philip Taylor wrote:

 > Zdenek Wagner wrote:
 > 
 > > So why insteat of writing about racism don't you help TL
 > > developers by asking the Diogenes developers how they managed to
 > > obtain another license?
 > 
 > Because, from Martin's reply, already cited, it is quite clear that
 > to do so would be a waste of time : <quote>[W]e only want free
 > software on the DVDs</quote>.

Phil, this discussion is wasted time anyway because it's still unclear
what we gain.  Does Active Perl provide the missing packages or not?
Unless there is an answer to this question the whole discussion is
absolutely useless.

There are technical problems too, BTW.  An external Perl is visible to
the rest of the system but there are at least two Perl distributions
available for Windows.  If people already use Perl for other projects
then we have to allow them to use the distribution of their choice.

An important feature of the "hidden" Perl shipped with TeX Live is
that it doesn't interfere with any other Perl distribution already
installed on the system.  We can't provide anything else because we
can't make sure that we don't break anything.

Is it so difficult for Windows users to install Perl on Windows
themselves?

Phil, we had this boring discussion about the word "free" many times
in the past.  Please try to understand that if we want to make TeX
Live as useful as possible for everybody, we have to consider the
freedom of users in the first place.  Martin's statement is misleading
because it contains the words "we want" though actually we have no
other choice.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha                                      Phone: +49-511-3373112
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