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authorLudovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>2020-12-05 19:01:45 +0100
committerLudovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>2020-12-06 23:18:08 +0100
commit7f13e8d862e52f3b199b529f833a2bde362311a8 (patch)
tree5a4d74184133e19825ec62622586f565adc24473 /doc
parentce3b5e5a8d8566162201cb778c4586f94a626dfa (diff)
doc: Add note on the importance of bootstrapping.
* doc/guix.texi (Bootstrapping): Remove distinction between "regular users" and "hackers". Explain the importance of the question.
Diffstat (limited to 'doc')
-rw-r--r--doc/guix.texi13
1 files changed, 9 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/doc/guix.texi b/doc/guix.texi
index a5c9779c86..b7187963b7 100644
--- a/doc/guix.texi
+++ b/doc/guix.texi
@@ -32789,10 +32789,15 @@ Bootstrapping in our context refers to how the distribution gets built
``from nothing''. Remember that the build environment of a derivation
contains nothing but its declared inputs (@pxref{Introduction}). So
there's an obvious chicken-and-egg problem: how does the first package
-get built? How does the first compiler get compiled? Note that this is
-a question of interest only to the curious hacker, not to the regular
-user, so you can shamelessly skip this section if you consider yourself
-a ``regular user''.
+get built? How does the first compiler get compiled?
+
+It is tempting to think of this question as one that only die-hard
+hackers may care about. However, while the answer to that question is
+technical in nature, its implications are wide-ranging. How the
+distribution is bootstrapped defines the extent to which we, as
+individuals and as a collective of users and hackers, can trust the
+software we run. It is a central concern from the standpoint of
+@emph{security} and from a @emph{user freedom} viewpoint.
@cindex bootstrap binaries
The GNU system is primarily made of C code, with libc at its core. The