Re: official Emacs Docker image

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

Please forgive me for taking 6 months to respond to this.

  > You create a Docker build recipe by picking a "base" GNU/Linux distribution
  > (some variant of GNU/Linux that has an absolute minimum of included 
programs),
  > a recipe to install build tools, and then a recipes to build the target
  > program. There are many ways to optimize this so that the result is as small
  > as possible, but that's the basics in a nutshell.

  > If the FSF doesn't endorse Debian, then an alternate GNU/Linux base can be
  > chosen, and the build step crafted to suit it.

I think I follow this part.

  > The final "image" as they call it will be an Emacs binary, built on that 
base,
  > that users can download and directly run from any of the major operating
  > systems (Mac OS X, Windows, any flavor of GNU/Linux).

At this point, I am confused, because the statements seem to conflict.

Would the "Docker image" of Emacs _include_ the base system?  Or would
it be an executable Emacs package that could be installed straight _on
top of_ that base system?

If it is the latter, I don't see how it could run on any other
GNU/Linux system version aside from the one chosen as the base,
except using a virtual machine containing the chosen base system.

If it is the latter, then I see how it could run on another GNU/Linux system
in a virtual machine, but using the virtual machine seems like a drawback.

Can you please explain?


I do see how running on other systems by running GNU/Linux in a
virtual machine could make maintenance easier for us -- we could
perhaps delete some of our code used to support those other systems.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.