Hi John
Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense.
Gene

-----Original Message-----
From: John Darrington <j...@darrington.wattle.id.au>
To: Oren Ish-Shalom <tuna.is.good.for....@gmail.com>
Cc: someone <maffyd...@aol.com>; j...@darrington.wattle.id.au 
<j...@darrington.wattle.id.au>; public....@gmail.com <public....@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?
    

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