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Re: concensus on removing TeX and Emacs from standard

I am an ordinary user, not a devel, but if I may say what I think
then I would support Robert Woodcock suggestion. That is, I am
in favor of having Tex, Emacs and X as optional.

1) Linux in general and there for Debian tend to be used also where
Tex, emacs and X might not be so important or even useful. In particular
I am thinking about routers, taking old boxes and having them as
mail handlers, DNS, nntp handlers etc. Also there are real time
boxes, or ones with limited HD.
2) Tex in particular might be trouble some when non English speaking
users are concerned. I for example, have still unfamiliar of how
to use it with Hebrew and its problematic support of Hebrew is
one of the reasons that I am postponing my intent to learn how
to use Latex. i18n is also a reason why emacs is not so suited
for non English speaking users. Some editors support i18n better,
perhaps because those editors are small enough so that creating 
support for other languages can be made more easily. Actually, as far
as I know X also has problems with i18n. And what I am thinking is
about are hebrew fonts - although there are some it seems to me that
we tend to use ones from other systems.
has problem with i18n.
--- Begin Message --- 
On Fri, Dec 31, 1999 at 12:03:02AM -0800, Robert Woodcock wrote:
> Hello, I think TeX and Emacs should no longer be standard. 

What would you say has changed since this was put in policy initially?

Emacs is a pretty important part of the GNU system (as far as the FSF
goes), and TeX is a fairly useful thing to have around too. People who
don't want it are, of course, free to not have them.

Personally, I'd be inclined to upgrade X11 to Standard. What's changed
since it was put in policy originally? Computers have become a lot faster
and larger, and a lot more GNU/Linux users expect to have a GUI available.

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG encrypted mail preferred.

 ``The thing is: trying to be too generic is EVIL. It's stupid, it 
        results in slower code, and it results in more bugs.''
                                        -- Linus Torvalds

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