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doc: Add note on the importance of bootstrapping.

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* doc/guix.texi (Bootstrapping): Remove distinction between "regular
users" and "hackers".  Explain the importance of the question.
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Ludovic Courtès 2020-12-05 19:01:45 +01:00
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doc/guix.texi
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@ -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