that old GNU/Linux argument

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Jul 19, 2008, Timothy Murphy <gayleard at eircom.net> wrote:

> Just to explain my remark above, I was referring to the document
> <http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install>
> which only mentions a Live Hurd CD in the context
> that it is available for purchase.

And what's wrong with that?

Are you by any chance one of those (unfortunately many) people who
take 'Free Software' as meaning 'gratis software'?

Or do you misunderstand it as 'software available for download'?

What makes Software Free is that its users get their 4 essential
freedoms respected.  It doesn't require anyone who wants to to be able
to become a user.

The same applies to Open Source Software, FWIW.

> As I mentioned elsewhere I did not actually have much luck
> searching for this famous Hurd Live CD.

It doesn't matter.  If you believe strongly that Free Software ought
should be available gratis, even in physical medium, you might as well
pay the small fee and make sure it is.

> If you really don't have the facility for burning CDs
> and can point me to the URL I will be happy to send you a real Live CD.

Don't bother, I already have a GNU/Hurd Live CD.  I wouldn't mind
having a newer one (mine is many years old), but I was really just
testing your consistency of opinion :-)

> I would do that myself if I knew where to get it.

You do know that, you just don't want to pay for it :-)

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
FSFLA Board Member       ¡Sé Libre! => http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}