is it an opensource workstation

[george2 at spanmail.net]

Mr. Keating,
  I wonder if, without a compiler is it open source any more?  Fedora supports a hundred languages but the c compiler ties almost all 'open source' efforts to a common human effort across many versions of Unix.

  Doesn't such a spin just become like a commercial distribution of compiled binaries?

  Without a compiler I cannot bring in the smallest CPAN Perl module, or bring in the source to personalize my use of an application, or to be curious to experiment on my own.
 
  Such a discussion maybe does belong here in this list as it is the engineers, gurus and wizards who need to look away from deadlines sometimes and consider if they like they way their codified intellect is used and the direction its use portends. You have expressed your view, this is mine.
 
George2