On 2 Dec 2000, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > John Galt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > pkg_add -r gcc on a freebsd box will pull down a binary of gcc without a > > copy of the GPL. > > Perhaps I'm confused, but I thought the normal procedure was the > "ports" mechanism, which pulls down source and compiles it locally. > If it's actually more like the way Debian or Red Hat do it, then > certainly the same issue applies there.
A good portion of ports are built into binary packages. The ports are the preferred method for adding to FreeBSD, but binary packages exist: can you imagine the fun of compiling XFree86 4.0.1 from scratch on a '486? I don't have to imagine it, I dealt with it for a week. Soon after that is when I had the crash course in the binary packages. > However, it's the case that RMS is mostly ignorant of how things like > big OS distributions are structured; you shouldn't assume that he's > been aware of things all along and woke up in late November and > decided to mail Wichert. I think it probably first came to his > attention last month with respect to Debian (because that's what the > FSF uses itself of course) and he doesn't know that the same thing > applies in other systems. > > Feel free to tell him; you probably know those details more than I do. > > Thomas > -- CCI Power 6/40: one board, a megabyte of cache, and an attitude... John Galt ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
